^t^mRiMai^ 



\mii 



i 
t 



mi 



ii 



^mm[ 






i ^ 



Digitized by the Internef Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive;org/details/moriscosofspaintOOIeah 



THE 



MORISCOS 



WOKKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 



A History of Auricular Confession and Indulgences in the 
Latin Church. In three octavo volumes of over 500 pages each, 
cloth, $9.00. (Lea Brothers & Co. ) 

A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages. In three 
octavo volumes of about 600 pages each, cloth, $9.00. (Harper & 
Brothers. ) 

Chapters from the Eeligious History of Spain connected 
WITH THE Inquisition. In one volume, royal 12mo. of 522 pages, 
cloth, $2.50. (Lea Brothers & Co. ) 

Superstition and Force : Essays on the Wager of Lav^^, The 
Wager of Battle, The Ordeal and Torture. Fourth Edition. 
In one volume, royal 12mo. of 627 pages, cloth, $2.75. (Lea Brothers 
&Co.) 

Studies in Church History : The Eise of the Temporal 
Power, Benefit of Clergy, Excommunication, The Early" 
Church and Slavery. Second Edition. In one volume, royal 12mo. 
of 605 pages, cloth, $2.50. (Lea Brothers & Co. ) 

A Formulary of the Papal Penitentiary in the Thirteenth 
Century. In one octavo volume of 221 pages, cloth, $2.50. (Lea 
Brothers & Co. ) 

An Historical Sketch of Sacerdotal Celibacy in the 
Christian Church. Second Edition. In one octavo volume of 682 
pages, cloth, $4.50. (Houghton, Mifflin & Co. ) 



THE 



MOEISCOS 



OF 



SPAIN 



THEIR CONVERSION AND EXPULSION. 



BY 

HENRY CHARLES LEA, LL.D, 



PHILADELPHIA: 

LEA BROTHERS & CO. 
1901. 



^\ 



s 



JAN 23 1901 



SECOND COPY 



Eatered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1901, by 

HENRY CHARLES LEA, 
In the office of the Librarian of Congress. All rights reserved. 






D- 



K 



DORNAN, PRIJVTER. 



/ 



^^3 



■i'(D 



PREFACE. 



The material od which this volume is based was 
collected for a chapter in a general history of the Spanish 
Inquisition which I hope in due time to prepare. On 
reviewing it the subject has seemed to me to possess 
interest and importance deserving fuller treatment than 
it could receive as a mere episode in a larger narrative^ 
for it not only embotlies a tragedy commanding the 
deepest sympathy, but it epitomizes nearly all the errors 
and tendencies which combined to cast down Spain, in 
little more than a century, from its splendor under 
Charles V. to its humiliation under Carlos II. 

The labors of modern Spanish scholars have made 
public a mass of documentary evidence which throws 
much light on the inner history of the movements lead- 
ing up to the final catastrophe, but this has been mostly 
drawn from state papers and unconsciously minimizes the 
part taken by intolerance and embodied in the Inquisi- 
tion. To some extent I have therefore been able to 
supplement their researches and to make more prominent 
what was perhaps the most efficient agency in rendering 



vi PREFACE. 

impossible the amalgamation of the races essential to the 
peace and prosperity of the land. I have also been able 
to present in some detail the repeated efforts made to 
give religious instruction to the so-called converts^ and 
the causes of their failure. 

In the collection of inedited material my thanks are 
largely due to Seiior Don Claudio Perez y Gredilla^ the 
accomplished chief of the Archivo General of SimancaSj 
and to Seiior Don Ramon Santa Maria^ formerly in 
charge of the Archivo Central of Alcala de Henares. 

Philadelphia, January, 1901. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTEE I. 



THE MUDEJARES. 

Character of the War of the Eeconquest 

Moorish Inhabitants not disturbed in their Eeligion 

Friendly Relations of Christians and Moors 

The Church urges Intolerance 

Usefulness of the Moorish Population.. 

Growth of Intolerance . 

Separation of the Eaces .... 

Establishment of the Inquisition . 

Guarantees to the Moors in the Conquest of Granada 

Invitation to Portuguese Moors . . . . 



PAGE 
1 

2 
3 
4 
6 

8 
11 
14 
16 
23 



CHAPTEE II. 



X I M E N E S . 

Missionary Work of Archbishop Talavera in Granada 
Tendency towards Conversion .... 

Activity of the Inquisition 

Cardinal Ximenes assists Talavera 

His Arbitrary methods provoke Eesistance . 

Tumult affords Pretext for enforced Conversion . 

Eevolt in Apulj arras crushed and Baptism enforced 

Eevolt in Sierra Bermeja settled by Exile or Baptism 

Mudejares throughout Castile coerced to Baptism 

Ferdinand restrains Persecution 

Edicts of Grace 

Activity of the Inquisition 

Navarre 



25 

27 
28 
29 
31 
35 
38 
39 
42 
47 
49 
51 
55 



viu 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTEE III 



THE GERMANIA. 

The Kingdoms of Aragon, their Independence 
Ferdinand swears not to interfere with the Mudejares 
Inquisitorial Activity in Valencia . 

Revolt of the Germanla 

Forcible Baptism of the Mudejares 

The Inquisition prosecutes the new Converts 

Efforts to complete the Work of Conversion . 

Ineffaceable Character of Baptism . 

Investigation into the Baptisms 

Apostates to be prosecuted .... 



PAGE 

57 
58 
60 
62 
63 
67 
69 
71 
74 
78 



CHAPTEE lY. 



CONVERSION BY EDICT. 

Charles V. insists on Unity of Faith. 

Clement VII, releases him from his Oath 

Edict offering Alternative of Baptism or Expulsion 

Eemonstrance of Aragon 

Eesistance in Valencia 

Mudejares submit to Baptism and become Moriscos 
Concordia or Agreement of 1528 .... 
Activity of Inquisition . . . . . . 

Inquisition suspended 

Attempt at Conciliation 

Activity of Inquisition in Castile .... 



82 

83 

85 

88 

90 

95 

96 

97 

100 

103 

104 



CHAPTEE V. 

THE INQUISITION. 

Character of Inquisitorial Procedure 

Specimen Trial of Mari Gomez .... 

Confiscation and Pecuniary Penance 

In Valencia the Inquisition disregards the Law 
Confiscation compromised for Annual Payment 
Abuse of Pecuniary Penance .... 



Ill 
114 
119 
121 
125 
127 



CONTENTS. 



IX 



Prosecution for trivial Offences 
Nobles prosecuted for Fautorship 
Occasional Eesistance 



PAGE 

129 
133 

135 



CHAPTER VI. 



CONVERSION BY PERSUASION 



Neglect of Religious Instruction . 

The Money Question — Universal Greed 

Endeavor to establish Rectories 

College for Moriscos founded in Valencia 

Delays and Neglect .... 

Deplorable condition of the Rectories . 

Attempt at Preaching — Ignorance of Arabic 

Mingling the Races .... 

Renewed Attempts at Instruction . 

Papal Briefs empowering Pardon for Relapse 

Futile Attempts at Instruction 

The Money Question baffles all Efforts . 

Plans and Discussions ." 

Failure of final Edict of Grace of 1599 . 

Rectories still insufficiently endowed 



137 
140 
142 
143 
145 
146 
148 
151 
155 
156 
161 
167 
169 
172 
176 



CHAPTER VII. 



CONDITION OF THE MORISCOS 

Antagonism between the Races 
Additional Burdens brought by Conversion 
The Inquisition as a Protector 
Exactions of the Lords — Virtual Serfdom 
Emigration prohibited .... 
Disarmament . . . 
Disabilities arising from Limpieza . 
Relations to the Chu]:ch — Burials, Baptism 

Marriage within Prohibited Degrees 
Morisco Communities .... 
Grievances urged against Moriscos — Popular Hatred 



178 
183 
184 
186 
188 
190 
197 
201 
203 
207 
209 



I 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTEE VIII. 



THE REBELLION OF GRANADA. 

Condition of Granada after the rising of 1500 
Edict of 1526 — Its suspension .... 
Negotiations for Relief from the Inquisition 

Increasing Oppression 

Revival in 1566 of the Edict of 1526— Neglect of Military 

Precautions . . . . ... 

Excitement of the Moriscos ..... 

Explosion of the Rebellion 

Military System of Spain — Character of the War 

Mondejar speedily enforces Submission . 

Interests opposed to Pacification .... 

Insubordination and Brigandage of the Troops 

Mondejar Superseded by Don John of Austria 

Revival and Successes of the Rebellion 

Expulsion of Moriscos of the Albaycin 

Exhaustive Efforts made by Philip II. . 

Don John takes the Field— the Rebellion gradually 

pressed 

Expulsion of all Moriscos ordered and executed . 
Murder of King Abenabo and End of the War . 
Arrangements for Repopulation .... 
Restrictions on the scattered Exiles 
Endeavors to prevent their Return to Granada 



sup- 



PAGE 

213 
214 

218 
223 

226 
230 
236 
238 
240 
244 
245 
246 
249 
250 
253 

254 
256 
261 
264 
265 
268 



CHAPTER IX. 



DANGERS FROM ABROAD 

Correspondence with Barbary and Turkey 
Ravages of Corsairs on the Coasts . 
Plots for Rebellion with Aid from Abroad 
Assistance sought from France 
Anxieties of Spanish Statesmen 
Negotiations of Moriscos with Henry IV. 
Alarm about Muley Cidan 
Renewed Plans of Henry IV. 



271 
272 
278 
281 

284 
285 
289 
290 



CONTENTS, 



XI 



CHAPTER X 



EXPULSION. 

Perplexities of Spanish Statesmanship . 
Various Solutions of the Problem proposed . 

Theological Ferocity 

Interests opposed to Expulsion 
Prolonged Discussion over Expulsion . 

Death of Philip II 

Influence of the Duke of Lerma over Philip III. 
Memorials of Archbishop Eibera . 

Projects in 1602 - 

Expulsion resolved upon in 1608 . 

Preparations in 1609 

Edict published in Valencia, September 22, 1609 
Perplexing questions concerning Children . 
The Moriscos resolve to submit 
They mostly rejoice to embark 
Risings at del A guar and Muela de Cortes suppressed 
Expulsion from Aragon and Catalonia . 
Passage of Exiles through France . 
Expulsion from Granada and Andalusia 

Expulsion from Castile 

Exemptions withdrawn from Christian Moriscos 
Search for remnants and for returned Exiles 
Morisco slaves retained .... 
Expulsion from Murcia .... 

Number of Exiles 

Sufferings of the Exiles .... 
Christian Moriscos martyred in Morocco 
Many return and submit to Enslavement 



PAGE 

292 
293 
297 
299 
300 
304 
306 
307 
310 
313 
315 
319 
322 
326 
328 
332 
337 
340 
344 
348 
351 
353 
354 
355 
359 
360 
363 
364 



CHAPTER XI. 

RESULTS. 

Ecclesiastical Rejoicing 366 

Consolation offered 367 

Reduction of Revenues 369 



xii CONTENTS. 








PAGE 


Difficulty of Repopulation 370 


Losses ou censos or Ground-rents . 






. 370 


Gain accruing to the King 






. 372 


Complexities of Settlement . 






. 374 


Impoverishment of the Inquisition 






. 375 


Counterfeit coinage .... 






. 377 


Causes of slow Eecovery — Aversion to Laboi 






. 379 


Inordinate Increase of the Clergy . 






. 381 


Example of Ciudad-Real 






. 383 


Projects of Eelief 






. 384 


Persistent Complications 






. 386 


Eradication of Mahometanism 






. 388 


Eenegades . . . . 






. 390 


Last remnants of Moriscos 






. 392 


Modern Opinions 






. 394 


Retribution 






. 397 


Absence of Recuperative Power . 






. 399 


Appendix of Documents 403 


Index 


. 


. 


. 445 



THE MORISCOS. 



CHAPTER I. 



THE MUDEJAEES. 



It has been the fashion to regard the war of the Re- 
conquest^ through which Spain was gradually won back 
from the Moslems, as a war of religion. During its prog- 
ress at times it suited the purpose of the Christian princes 
so to represent it, when they solicited the aid of crusaders 
and proclaimed themselves as champions of the Cross. 
It was so regarded in Rome, where service against the 
Spanish Saracens v/as frequently considered as the equiv- 
alent of service in Palestine and the knights of the Temple 
and of the Hospital were allowed to expend their military 
ardor on their infidel neighbors. In fact, however, the 
medieval history of Spain shows that in the long struggle 
there was little antagonism either of race or religion. At 
the Moorish conquest the populations willingly submitted 
to the invaders, who were no harsher masters than the 
Goths had been, and the conquerors made no attempt to 
interfere with the religion of their new subjects who main- 
tained their faith and their ecclesiastical organization until 
the irruption of fresh hordes of fanatic barbarians, known 
as Almoravides and Almohades, in the eleventh and 
twelfth centuries, caused their gradual disappearance. 
Similarly as territory was won by the Christians the 

1 



2 THE MUDEJARES. 

peaceable population was left undisturbed ; prisoners 
taken in war without conditions were enslaved, but the 
conquests were mostly the result of formal surrenders in 
which the inhabitants were guaranteed the possession of 
their property and the enjoyment of their religion and 
laws. They came to be known by the name of Mudejares 
— the corruption of Mudegelin, an opprobrious term be- 
stowed upon them by the Moors, derived from the word 
Degel which we are told was equivalent to Antichrist.^ 
Enslaved prisoners could acquire liberty by various acts 
of public service, but baptism did not enfranchise them 
unless the owner were a Moor or a Jew. No forcible 
conversion was allowed, but only persuasion, and the con- 
vert had all the rights of the Old Christians save eligi- 
bility to holy orders ; he was never to be insulted but 
was to be held in honor.^ 

The toleration which thus became the national policy 
was strengthened by the habitual alliances with Moorish 
neighbors of Christian princes involved in mutual civil 

^ Luis del Marmol Carbajal, Rebelion y Castigo de los Moriscos de 
Granada, p. 158 (Biblioteca de Autores EspanoleSj Tom. XXI. ). Ample 
evidence of the nullity of tlie religious factor in the war of the recon- 
quest will be found in Dozy, Recherches sur V Histoire et la Litterature de 
r Espagne ( Leipzig, 1881 ), and in Francisco Fernandez y Gonzales, Estado 
de los Mudejares de Castilla (Madrid, 1866). The ballads of the Roman- 
cero afford abundant proof of the absence of popular religious acerbity, 
even down to the capture of Granada. 

2 Las Siete Partidas P. i. Tit. v. ley 23 ; P. iv. Tit. xxi. ley 8 ; Tit. 
xxiii. ley 3 ; P. yii. Tit. xxv. 11. 2, 3. 

It is evident that the Moorish slaves were often men of trained intel- 
ligence, highly trusted by their masters for another law (iv. xxi. 7) 
provides that the latter are bound by any contracts made by slaves whom 
they have placed in control of a shop or ship or any description of 
trade. The Spanish disinclination to labor and the monopoly of indus- 
try by Moors and Jews is readily intelligible from medieval conditions. 



CO-OPERATION OF MOORS AND CHRISTIANS, 3 

war. There never was the slightest hesitation in invok- 
ing the aid of the infidel^ whether to foment or suppress a 
rebellion. When, in 1270, Alfonso X. excited disaffec- 
tion by releasing Portugal from its vassalage to Leon, his 
brother, the Infante Philip, took advantage of the situa- 
tion and organized a conspiracy with a number of the 
more powerful ricosomes. Their first thought was to 
solicit assistance from Abu Jusuf, King of Morocco, who 
willingly promised it ; the Castilian prelates lent their 
influence to the movement ; the conspirators established 
themselves in Granada as their head-quarters and there 
was prospect of desolating war with the Moors of both 
Africa and Spain when Queen Violante intervened and 
the rebellious nobles were bought off with concession^. 
Twelve years later, when Sancho el Bravo revolted against 
his father Alfonso with the support of all the nobles 
except the Master of Calatrava and of all the cities 
except Seville, Alfonso thus abandoned sent his crown 
to Abu Jusuf as security for a loan. The IMoor at once 
furnished him with 60,000 doblas and came himself with 
large forces ; Sancho made alliance with Granada, and 
the ensuing war, with Christians and Moors on both sides, 
raged until the death of Alfonso.^ Instances such as this 
on a large scale could be multiplied, but a trivial occur- 
rence will perhaps better illustrate the Christian spirit of 
the time. In 1299 certain knights of the military-relig- 
ious Order of Santiago seized some castles of the Order 
on the Moorish border, filled them with Saracen troops 
and threatened to give them over to the enemy unless the 

^ Cronica de Don Alfonso X., cap. xix.-lviii., Ixxvi. — Barrantes, 
Illustraciones de la Casa de Niebla, Lib. i. cap. vi., ix. (Memorial His- 
torico Espauol, IX. 72-9, 92-8). 



4 THE MUDEJABES. 

Master and Chapter would grant them in perpetuity cer- 
tain properties of the Order. Their terms were accepted ; 
the lands were made over with solemn legal assurances 
that they would never be reclaimed^ in spite of which 
complaint was made to Pope Boniface VIII. ^ who 
promptly ordered the Archbishop of Toledo to compel 
restitution under ecclesiastical censures.^ 

The Churchy in fact^ had long regarded with disfavor 
the careless indifference which led Alfonso VI. to style 
himself imperador de los dos cultos ^ — which was satisfied 
to allow subject Moors to enjoy their religion in peace. 
When^ in 1212, Alfonso IX., at the head of a crusade, 
won the great victory of Las JSTavas de Tolosa and ad- 
vanced to Ubeda, where 70,000 Moors had taken refuge, 
they offered to become Mudejares and to pay him a ran- 
som of a million doblas. He accepted the terms but the 
clerical chiefs of the crusade, Rodrigo of Toledo and 
Arnaud of Narbonne, forced him to withdraw his assent, 
with the result that, after some further negotiation, the 
Moors were all massacred except such as were reserved as 
slaves.^ In a similar spirit Innocent IV.^ in 1248, or- 
dered Jayme I. of Aragon to permit no Moors, save as 
slaves, to reside in the Balearic Isles which he had con- 
quered in 1229.^ It is not likely that he paid any atten- 
tion to this command, for when, in 1238, he added 
Valencia to his dominions he allowed the Moors to remain 
as Mud6jares. In 1266 Clement IV. returned to the 
charge in a brief urging upon him the expulsion of all 

^ Digard, Kegistres de Boniface VIII. No. 3334. 
2 Fernandez y Gonzales, Mudejares de Castilla, p. 39. 
^ Mondejar, Memorias de Alonso YIII., Cap. cv., cviii. — Roderici 
Toletani de Rebus Hispanicis Lib. viii. cap. xii. 
^ Villanueva, Viage Literario, XXI. 131. 



COMMANDS OF THE CHURCH. 5 

Saracens from the kingdoms of the crown of Aragon. The 
pope told him that his reputation would suffer greatly if 
in view of temporal profit he should longer permit such 
opprobrium of God^ such infection of Christendom as 
is caused by the horrible cohabitation of Moors and 
Christians^ while by expelling them he would fulfil his 
vow to Godj close the mouths of his detractors and 
show his zeal for the faith. It was probably in return 
for a tithe of the ecclesiastical revenues that Jayme had 
pledged himself to the pope to expel the Moors, but he 
was too worldly wise to do so and as late as 1275 he in- 
vited additional Moorish settlers by the promise of a 
year's exemption from taxation. In 1276, however, on 
his death-bed, in consequence partly of a dangerous Moor- 
ish revolt and partly of the awakened fears shown by his 
taking the Cistercian habit, he enjoined his son Pedro to 
fulfil the promise and in a codicil to his will he emphat- 
ically repeated the injunction, but Pedro, like his father, 
was too sagacious to obey.^ 

. In fact, obedience to the commands of the Church in- 
volved consequences to the welfare of the State which no 
ruler could contemplate without dismay. Except for 
military purposes the Mudejares formed the most valu- 
able portion of the population, and even in war their 
services were relied upon, for we find Pedro, when gather- 
ing his forces to resist the invasion of Philippe le Hardi, 
in 1283, summoning his faithful Moors of Valencia to 

1 Kipoll Bullarii Ord. FF. Pr^dicator. I 479.— Danvila y Collado, 
La Expulsion de los Moriscos, p. 24. — Swift, James the First of Ara- 
gon, pp. 140, 253, 290. — King Jayme is said to have made a vow, when 
about to undertake the conquest of Valencia, not to permit any Moors 
to remain in the land. 



6 THE MUDEJABES. 

swell his ranks and in 1385^ when levies were made in 
Murcia for the war with Portugal each aljama^ or Moor- 
ish organization^ had its allotted quota.^ It was on their 
industry moreover that the prosperity of the land reposed. 
None of the resources of the State were more relied upon 
than the revenues which they furnished and assign- 
ments on these were in request as the safest security for 
appanages and dowers and for the income of prelates and 
religious corporations.^ They were virtually indispen- 
sable to the nobles on whose lands they were settled, for 
they were most skilful in agriculture and unwearied in 
labor. They carried these characteristics into every de- 
partment of industry, science and art. As physicians 
they ranked with the Jews, and when, in 1345, the Prior 
of the Order of Santiago built the church of Nuestra 
Senora de Ucl6s, we are told that he assembled '^ Moorish 
masters ^^ and good Christian stone masons who erected 
the structure.^ They were equally skilled in marine 
architecture and the Catalan power in the Mediterranean 
was largely due to their labors. The wonderful system 
of irrigation by which they converted Valencia into the 
garden of Europe still exists, with its elaborate and equi- 
table allotments of the waters. They introduced the cul- 
ture of sugar, silk, cotton, rice and many other valuable 
products and not a spot of available ground was left un- 
tilled by their indefatigable industry. The Mahometan 
law which prescribed labor as a religious duty was fully 
obeyed and every member of a family contributed his 

^ Fernandez y Gonzalez, pp. 221, 286. — Coleccion de Documentos de 
la Corona de Aragon, VI. 157, 196. 
2 Ibid. VIII. 53.— Memorial Historico Espanol, I- 239, 263 ; III. 439. 
^ Fernandez y Gonzalez, pp. 382, 386. 



THEIR USEFULNESS. 7 

share of work to the common support. In all the 
mechanic arts they were unexcelled. The potteries of 
Malaga, the cloths of Murcia, the silks of Almeria and 
Granada, the leather hangings of Cordova, the weapons of 
Toledo were renowned everywhere and furnished the 
materials for profitable foreign commerce, which was 
stimulated by the universal reputation of their merchants 
for probity and strict fidelity to their engagements, so 
that it passed into a proverb that the word of a Granadan 
and the faith of. a Castilian would make an Old Chris- 
tian, or, as Hernando de Talavera, the saintly Arch- 
bishop of Granada used to say '' They ought to adopt 
our faith and we ought to adopt their morals.'^ They 
were temperate and frugal ; they married early, the girls 
at eleven and the boys at twelve, without fear of the 
future, for a bed and ten libras or ducats were considered 
sufficient dowry. There were no beggars among them, 
for they took affectionate care of their own poor and 
orphans ; they settled all quarrels between themselves 
and held it to be unlawful to prosecute each other before 
a Christian tribunal.^ In short, they constituted the most 
desirable population that any land could possess, and we 
shall have occasion to note hereafter the curious perver- 
sity with which these good qualities were converted into 
accusations against them by their Christian persecutors. 

It is easy for us now to see what might have been the 
prosperity of Spain had a population thus gifted been 
gradually interfused with their vigorous conquerors, to 

^ Janer, Condicion social de los Moriscos, pp. 47-50, 161. — Fonseca, 
Giusto Scacciaraento de' Moreschi, pp. 87, 89 (Roma, 1611). — Pedraza, 
Historia eclesiastica de Granada, fol. 187 (Granada, 1638). 



8 THE MUDEJABES. 

whose religion they would have been won over in time 
through friendly intercourse. To the conscientious medie- 
val churchman, however, any friendship with the infidel 
was the denial of Christ ; the infidel was not to be for- 
cibly converted, but it was a duty to lay upon him such 
burdens that he would himself seek relief in conversion. 
Accordingly the toleration and conciliation, which were 
the basis of the Spanish policy, were vigorously opposed 
in Rome, where the effort was to keep the races as far 
apart as possible, through the somewhat humiliating fear 
that Christianity would lose more than it could gain in 
the intercourse between them. Even the freedom of 
ordinary commercial dealings, permitted by the Spanish 
laws, was discouraged and in 1250 the Order of Santiago 
felt it necessary to represent to Innocent IV. that it held 
numerous Moorish vassals, wherefore it asked for licence 
to buy and sell with them, which he granted accordingly.^ 
Another device to keep the races separate, on which the 
Church persistently insisted, was prescribed by the Lat- 
eran council of 1216 — that all Jews and Saracens should 
wear a distinctive garment or badge. This was not only 
humiliating but dangerous, as it exposed the wearer to 
insult and maltreatment, especially in the case of travel- 
lers, such as muleteers and merchants, on the notoriously 
insecure highways. A long struggle ensued between the 
Church and the Spanish monarchs over the enforcement 
of this canon. At length in Aragon an attempt in that 
direction was made, in 1300, by an ordinance requiring 
the Mudejares to have the hair cut in a peculiar fashion, 
and in Castile, at the request of the cortes of Toro in 
1371, Henry II. ordered all Jews and Moors to wear a 

1 Fernandez y Gonzalez, pp. 294, 321, 367. 



CONTINUED TOLERATION. 9 

badge; but the injiiDction had to be frequently repeated 
and received scant obedience^ and when enforced we are 
told that it led to innumerable murders on the high roads.^ 
The Church was succeeding in gradually awakening the 
spirit of intolerance^ but its progress was slow. The 
council of Vienne in 1312 complained that Saracens 
dwelling in Christian lands were permitted to have priests 
who; from the minarets of the mosques^ invoked Mahomet 
and sounded his praises^ and further^ that the people 
were allowed to gather around the grave of one whom 
they adored as a saint ; these practices the council de- 
clared to be insufferable ; it ordered the princes to sup- 
press theni; with the alternative of winning salvation or 
of enduring a punishment which would render them a 
terrible example.^ This was directed especially at Spain^ 
but the princes were unmoved^ and in 1329 the council 
of Tarragona complained of their disobedience and ordered 
them to enforce the canon within two months^ under pain 
of excommunication and interdict.^ Nothing came of 
this and a century later^ in 1429^ the council of Tortosa 
supplicated the King of Aragon and all prelates and 
nobles^ by the bowels of divine mercy, to observe the 
canon and all other conciliar decrees for the exaltation of 
the faith and the humiliation of Jews and Moors and to 
see to their observance by their subjects if they wish to 

^ Concil. Lateran. lY. ann. 1216, cap. Ixviii. (Cap. 15, Extra, v. vi. ). — 
Eaynald. Annal. ann. 1217, n 84. — Amador de los Eios, Historia de 
los Judios de E^pana, I. 361-2, 364, 554 ; II. 116, 329, 565. — Partidas, 
P. Yii. Tit. xxiv. ley 11. — Fernandez y Gonzalez, p. 369. — Ayala, 
Cronica de Enrique 11. aiio vi. cap. vii. 

See also Eobert, Les Signes cV Lifamie au Moyen Age (Paris, 1891). 

^ Cap. 1, Clementin. Lib. v. Tit. ii. 

* Concil. Tarraconens. ann. 1329 (Aguirre, Concil. Hispan. VI. 370). 



10 "tSE MUDEJARE8. 

escape the vengeance of God and of the Holy See.^ This 
was equally ineffectual and it was reserved for Ferdinand 
and Isabella^ about 1482^ to enforce the canon of Vienne 
with a strictness which brought a remonstrance from 
Constantinople.^ 

The council of Vienne had likewise enacted a canon 
directed against the privileges accorded to the Jews in 
Spain. Evidently the Spanish bishops who attended the 
council must have been deeply impressed with the spirit 
which they found among their fellow prelates and they 
doubtless were given to understand the indignation with 
which Spanish tolerance was regarded elsewhere. The 
Spanish church hitherto had been singularly independent ; 
it was now brought into more direct relations with the rest 
of Christendom and it cast off the tolerant spirit which 
had thus far distinguished it, but its efforts were chiefly 
directed against the Jews^ although it strove impartially 
to create popular antagonism against both Moors and 
Jews and to put an end to the pernicious habit of these 
infidels frequenting divine service in Christian churches 
and of Christians participating in their weddings and 
merry-makings.^ Already^ moreover^ the final policy of 
expulsion was suggested^ in ] 337^ by Arnaldo^ Archbishop 
of Tarragona, in a letter to Benedict XII. imploring the 
pope to order the King of Aragon to adopt it. The 
material objections to it, he said, had been disproved by 
the Abbot of Poblet, who had recently expelled the 
Mud^jares from the possessions of the abbey without im- 
pairing its revennes, and the resistance of the nobles 

^ Concil. Dertusan. ann. 1429, cap. xx. (Ibid. V. 340). 
2 Eajnald. Annal. ann. 1483, n. 45. 

^ Concil. Vallisolet. ann. 1322, cap. xxii. ; Concil. Tarraconens. ann. 
1329 (Aguirre, V. 250, 371). 



SEPARATION OF THE UACES. H 

might be overcome by empowering them to seize and sell 
the persons and property of the Moors, as public enemies 
and infidels, while the money thus obtained would be 
serviceable for the defence of the kingdom^ — an inhuman 
proposition which we shall see officially approved by the 
Church in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. 

This constant ecclesiastical pressure began in time to 
produce its effect on the ruling classes and the fatal policy 
was adopted of separating as far as possible the races and 
reducing to a minimum the necessary intercourse between 
them. In the cortes of 1385 and 1387 laws were adopted, 
and in the council of Palencia in 1388 canons were decreed, 
punishing with heavy penalties all unnecessary conversa- 
tion between them and requiring Jew and Moor to kneel 
when the sacrament was carried through the streets and 
to observe all Christian feasts by abstaining from working 
publicly. Moreover their employment as officials and tax- 
collectors was forbidden, as it had frequently been before, 
and the old custom in the towns of separate quarters — 
Morerias and Juderias — ^for them was insisted on and 
rendered more absolute.^ In the restrictive legislation of 
1412 this matter occupies the first place; Morerias and 
Juderias were ordered to be established everywhere, sur- 
rounded by a wall having only one gate ; any one who 
within eight days after notice should not have settled 

1 Aguirre, V. 286-7. 

^ Cortes de los Antiguos Eeinos de Leon y de Castilla, II. 322, 325, 
363, 365, 369 (Madrid, 1863).— Amador de los Eios, 11. 331.— Orde- 
nanzas Eeales, Yiii. iii. 6. — Concil. Palentin. ann. 1388, cap. v., vi. 
(Aguirre, V. 300). 

It is worthy of note that in the proceedings of the cortes there is 
vastly more antagonism manifested towards Jews than towards Moors, 
arising from their greater activity as money lenders and usurers and 
their employment as farmers of the revenue and tax-collectors. 



12 THE MUDEJARES. 

therein forfeited all his property, with personal punish- 
ment at the king's pleasure, while severe penalties were 
provided for Christian women entering the forbidden 
precincts. It was easier to enact than to enforce such 
laws and in 1480 Ferdinand and Isabella state that this 
had been neglected, wherefore they renewed it, allowing 
two years for the establishment of these Ghettos after 
which any Jew or Moor dwelling outside of them was 
subjected to the prescribed penalties and no Christian 
woman should be found within them.^ Under Ferdinand 
and Isabella laws were no longer neglected and these 
were enforced with their accustomed vigor. 

In all this legislation Jews and Moors were included 
together, but clerical abhorrence was more particularly 
directed against the former, with the consequence that 
popular antipathy followed in the same direction, espe- 
cially as the Jews made themselves largely disliked by 
their practice of usury and their efficiency as tax-gatherers. 
That it was difficult to arouse antagonism towards the 
Mudejares would seem to be shown when Ferran Mar- 
tinez, the Archdeacon of Ecija, succeeded in starting the 
dreadful massacres of 1391. The Jews were the objects 
of his inflammatory harangues, and for three months, from 
June to September, in one city of Castile and Aragon 
after another, the populace rose on the Juderias, with 
slaughter and rapine, only sparing those who sought 
safety in baptism. The Morerias escaped, though in some 
places we are told the people only refrained from attack- 
ing them through fear of reprisals on the Christians in 

^ Ordenamiento de Yalladolid, i., xi. ( Fortalicium Fidei, fol. 176). 
— Fernandez y Gonzalez, pp. 400, 402. — Ordenanzas Keales, viii. iii., 
10, 19. 



PEOGEESS OF INTOLEEANCE. 13 

Barbary. That the Mud6jares^ in fact^ felt themselves 
exposed to imminent danger in the savage fanaticism of 
the time would appear from the statement that some ten 
thousand of them were added to the innumerable multi- 
tude of converts from Judaism made by San Vicente 
Ferrer who was the apostle of militant Christianity 
throughout this terrible uprising.^ 

Although the Mudejares thus escaped pillage and 
massacre^ the event exercised a sinister influence on their 
ultimate fortunes. The immense number of forcibly con- 
verted Jews created a new class in Spanish society known 
as Marranos^ conversos or New Christians^ the solidity 
of whose faith was not unreasonably regarded as doubtful. 
Released from all disabilities, their superior business 
aptitude speedily raised many of them and their descend- 
ants to commanding positions in Church and State, in- 
tensifying the dislike and envy with which they had 
previously been regarded. Antagonism which had before 
been almost purely religious became racial, while relig- 
ious antagonism became heightened and Spain, which 
through the earlier middle ages had been the most tol- 
erant land in Christendom, became, as the fifteenth cen- 
tury advanced, the most fanatically intolerant. It was 
impossible for the conversos wholly to abandon the mul- 
tifarious rites and customs of rabbinical Judaism in 
which they had been trained for so many generations ; 
these were regarded as indubitable evidence of apostasy 
in those who by baptism had become subject to the 
Church ; fiery preachers, like Alonso de Espina, were 
not lacking to point out the dangers to which Spanish 

^ I have treated in some detail on the massacres of 1391 in the 
American Historical Eeview, Vol. I. p. 209. 



14 THE MUDEJARES. 

Christianity was exposed of becoming Judaized by inter- 
course with these apostates, and finally Ferdinand and 
Isabella yielded to the apparent necessity of a radical 
cure by the establishment of the Inquisition in 1480. 
The unbaptized Jews were not subject to the Inquisition, 
so long as they abstained from proselytism or sacrilege, 
but this did not protect them from the ferocious zeal 
of the people, which seemed to be constantly increasing 
in intensity, unsatisfied by legislation which oppressed 
them with so many disabilities. In all this, jealousy of 
the superior energy of the non-Christian races had its 
share, for in spite of these disabilities the results of their 
intelligent industry were a constant source of dread and 
provocation. In 1453 a decree of the town of Haro 
forbids Christians to sell their estates to Jews and Moors, 
giving as a reason that if this were not stopped the 
Christians would have no ground left to cultivate as the 
Moors had already obtained possession of all the best of 
the irrigated lands. ^ It was doubtless this jealousy 
which prompted the demand made on Henry IV. by the 
revolted nobles, in 1460, that he should expel from the 
land all Jews and Moors who contaminated religion and 
corrupted morals.^ Whatever might have been lacking to 
stimulate this antagonism was supplied by the Holy See, 
when Eugenius IV. in 1442 and Nicholas V. in 1447 
issued terrible bulls of proscription against the Jews, em- 
bodying in the canon law all the most abhorrent features 
of Spanish legislation,^ and Sixtus IV. in a motu proprio 

^ Boletm de la Eeal Academia de la Historia, XXVI. 468-72. 
^ Colmenares, Historia de Segovia, cap. xxxi. ^ ix. 
* Eaynald. Annal. ann, 1442, n. 15. — Wadding. Annal. Ord. Mi- 
norum, ann. 1447, n. 10, 



PERSECUTION OF JEWS. 15 

of May 31, 1484, expressed his displeasure at learning 
that in Spain, and especially in Andalusia, these bulls were 
not observed, wherefore he ordered all officials, secular and 
ecclesiastical, to enforce strictly the canonical decrees con- 
cerning the proscribed races.^ Still the popular feeling 
seems to have been mostly directed against the Jews and 
Jewish conversos and we hear of no action against the 
Mudejares in the bloody risings against the former in 
Toledo in 1449 and 1467, in Yalladolid in 1470 and in 
Cordova and other towns of Andalusia in 1473.^ It is 
true that Alfonso de Borja, Archbishop of Valencia 
(1429-1455), afterward Pope Calixtus III., urged upon 
Juan II. of Aragon the expulsion of the Mudejares of 
Valencia, in which he was supported by Cardinal Juan de 
Torquemada, uncle of the celebrated inquisitor-general, and 
they made such impression on the mind of the king that 
he appointed a term for their departure, but he thought 
better of it and abandoned the measure.^ But the greater 
favor shown to the Moors is observable when, in 1480, 
Isabella ordered the expulsion from Andalusia, where 
the Jewish population was most numerous, of all Jews 
that would not embrace Christianity and when in 1486 
Ferdinand did the same in Aragon, although both of 
these measures Avere probably but financial expedients 
to sell exemptions and suspensions, for no positive action 
was taken. ^ Possibly in this allowance must be made 

1 Padre Fidel Fita (Boletm, XV. 443). 

^ Cronica de Juan II. afio xlii. cap. ii., v. — Cronica de Alvaro de 
Luna, Tit. Lxxxiii. — Valera, Memorial de diversas Hazaiias, cap. 
xxxviii., lxxxiii. -iv. — Castillo, Cronica de Enrique lY. cap. xc. , xci., 
cxlvi., clx. — Memorial Historico Espaiiol, VIII. 507-8. 

^ Bleda, Cronica de los Moros, p. 877 (Valencia, 1618). 

* Pulgar, Cronica de los Eejes Catolicos, ii. Ixxvii.— Archivo Gen- 



16 THE MUDEJARES. 

for the fact that the Mud^jares were protected against 
such measures by the old capitulations to which they 
could appeal as guaranteeing the right of domicile and 
the privilege of their religion^ while the Jews had neither 
rights nor privileges and their domicile was but a matter 
of sufferance. So it was in the crowning catastrophe 
when^ in 1492^ the final conquest of Granada from the 
Moors was signalized by the decree of expulsion of the 
Jews^ conceived and executed in a spirit of the most 
arbitrary injustice^ and Spain was deprived of some hun- 
dreds of thousands of its most intelligent and thrifty 
population.^ 

Human inconsistency has rarely been more conspicuous 
than in the contrast between this radical measure for puri- 
fying the faith of Spain and the politic course adopted by 
Ferdinand and Isabella in their gradual winning of the 
kingdom of Granada during the nine years' war between 
1482 and 1492. The traditional course was observed of 
subjecting to the utmost rigor of war places taken by 
assault or obliged to surrender at discretion^ while the 
sovereigns were always ready to grant the most liberal 
terms of capitulation. This is set forth^ in 1487^ in an 

eral de la Corona de Aragon, Reg. 3684, fol. 96.-— Padre Fidel Fita 
(Boletin, XV. 323-5, 327, 328, 330; XXIII. 431). 

^ The computations of the Jews expelled in 1492 range from 800,000 
down. Isidore Loeb (Revue des Etudes Juives, 1887, p. 182), after 
an exhaustive examination of all the sources, Christian and Jewish, 
reduces the number to 

Expelled 165,000 

Baptized to escape expulsion . . , , 50,000 
Died ,20,000 



235,000 



POLICY IN THE CONQUEST OF GBANADA, 17 

application to Sixtus IV. concerning the tithe which the 
Moors were accustomed to pay to their native kings, 
from which it would seem that the clergy laid claim to it 
in the conquered lands as though it were ecclesiastical. 
Ferdinand and Isabella represent that they cannot induce 
the Moors to submit if they oppress them more than their 
rulers have done ; that the capitulations always provide 
that they shall pay no more taxes than they had been 
accustomed to and that if the crown cannot enjoy these 
tithes there will be no revenues to defray the cost of gar- 
risoning the captured towns. This had been settled, they 
say, in the case of Aragon and Valencia and they ask 
Sixtus to apply the same rule to Granada. To this the 
pope assented and forbade all ecclesiastics from advancing 
any claim on the Moorish tithes.^ So when^ in 1489, the 
Sultan complained to the pope of the progressive con- 
quest of Granada, saying that there were many Christians 
in his dominions whom he protected in their faith and 
that if the war were not stopped he would be obliged to 
make reprisals on them, the sovereigns replied that they 
were only recovering their own and that the Moors in 
their territories enjoyed full liberty of person and re- 
ligion.^ 

This was not the result of a tolerant spirit for when 
the opportunity offered nothing could be more ferocious 
than their fanaticism. When they captured Malaga in 
August, 1487, after a desperate resistance of three 
months, all renegade Christians found there were tor- 
tured to death with sharp-pointed reeds, all conversos 
were burnt, and the inhabitants were held to ransom as 

^ Fernandez y Gonzalez, p. 412. ^ Pulgar, Cronica, iit. cxii. 

3 



18 THE MUDEJARES. 

slaves. Abraham Senior^ the Jewish financier of Queen 
Isabella^ paid 20^000 doblas to redeem four hundred and 
fifty Jews ; as for the Moors, a royal decree of September 
4th assented to an agreement by which they were to pay, 
as a ransom for themselves and their personal effects, 
thirty doblas a head, irrespective of age or condition of 
servitude, for the fulfilment of which they gave hostages ; 
such as desired to go to Barbary were to be transported 
at the royal expense, the rest might go anywhere, except 
within the kingdom of Granada, and were guaranteed 
safety and freedom.^ 

As the war drew toward the end, however, capitula- 
tions were granted even more liberal than those of old. 
That which secured the submission of Purchena and the 
important valley of the Almanzora with the Sierra de 
Filabres, December 7, 1489, receives all the inhabitants, 
with their officials and alfaquies or priests, under the 
royal safeguard ; it permits all the Mudejares who had 
come to their assistance to return freely home with their 
effects and free of accountability for whatever property 
they may have seized ; it gives free transport to Barbary 
to certain parties and their friends, with permission to 
sell their lands or collect the rents while absent ; it per- 
mits all others to go to Barbary whenever they choose ; 
it appoints Moors as magistrates who are to decide all 
suits between the inhabitants and Christians ; it pays 
12,000 reales as ransom for a hundred and twenty cap- 
tives held by the Moors ; it promises not to force rene- 
gades to return to Christianity ; it engages to exact no 
taxation greater than had been paid to the Kings of 

^ Zurita, Hist, de Aragon, Lib. lxx. cap. Ixxi. — Amador de los 
Kios, HI. 298-99. — Fernandez j Gonzalez, p. 415, 



POLICY IN THE CONQUEST OF GRANADA, 19 

Granada ; it allows tliem to live in their law and faith and 
to be judged according to the zunna or Moorish code ; it 
declares their houses inviolable against forcible entry or the 
free quartering of soldiers ; it guarantees them possession 
of their horses and arms and that they shall never be re- 
quired to wear badges and finally that the land shall never 
be alienated from the crown. All this was pledged in 
the most solemn manner on the royal faith and word/ 
Subsequently, on February 11^ 1490, a capitulation was 
drawn up for the city of Almeria which was to serve for 
all subsequent surrenders. This was even more liberal, 
containing in addition to the above provisions others 
which assured the new Mudejares of relief from unjust 
burdens laid upon them by the native kings ; that chil- 
dren born of Christian women should choose for them- 
selves at the age of twelve which religion to embrace ; 
that no Jew or convert should ever hold jurisdiction over 
them ; that no Christian should ever enter their aljamas ; 
that any fugitive Moorish slave coming to Baza or Guadix 
should be free ; that their rights in slaves kept in Bar- 
bary should not be disturbed, and it even included the 
Jews, who were placed on the same level as the Mude- 
jares if they were natives of Granada, while if they were 
renegades from Christianity they should have a year in 
which to return to the faith or to go to Africa.^ 

This careful detail would seem to assure to the con- 
quered Moors all the rights and privileges which they 
had enjoyed under native rule, but when the final sur- 

^ Fernandez y Gonzalez, p. 416. — Coleccion de Documentos ineditos 
para la Historia de Espaiia, VIII. 403. 

^ Fernandez y Gonzalez, p. 419. — Coleccion, XI. 475.— Pulgar, 
Cronica, iji. cxxv. 



20 THE MUDEJAEES. 

render was made of the city of Granada, involving the 
abdication of Boabdil and the establishment of Christian 
domination over ih^ whole land^ still greater concessions 
were granted. This was a solemn agreement, bearing 
date November 25, 1491, and ratified three days later, 
the surrender and delivery of the city to be made within 
forty days thereafter. Ferdinand and Isabella, for them- 
selves, for their son the Infante Juan, and for all their 
successors, received the Moors of all places that should 
come into the agreement as vassals and natural subjects, 
to be under the royal protection, to possess all their lands 
in perpetuity, to be preserved from all oppression, and 
to be honored and respected as vassals and subjects. 
They were not to be disturbed in their habits and cus- 
toms ; those who desired to go to Barbary had full per- 
mission to sell their property or to leave it in the hands 
of agents, while for three years they were to be trans- 
ported at the cost of the crown and subsequently at their 
own expense. They were never to be required to wear 
badges, and Jews were to have no authority over them or 
to be made collectors of the revenues. They were not to 
be deprived of their mosques, entrance to which was for- 
bidden to Christians. Questions between themselves 
were to be decided under the zunna or Moorish law by 
their own magistrates, while suits with Christians were to 
be heard by a mixed tribunal consisting of the Christian 
alcalde and Moorish cadi. Moorish slaves of Christian 
masters, flying to Granada, were not to be reclaimed. 
Tributes were not to be exacted greater than those paid 
to the native kings. Those who had fled to Barbary had 
three years in which to return and enjoy the privileges 
thus granted. They had free permission to trade with 



TEEMS OF CAPITULATION. 21 

Barbary and with all places in Castile and Andalusia 
without heavier imposts than those paid by Christians. 
Renegades were not to be maltreated by act or word and 
Christian women married to Moors were allowed to choose 
their own faith^ while no constraint was to be applied to 
Moors to induce conversion — -indeed^ any female Moor 
who through love for a Christian desired to change her 
religion was not to be received until she had been exam- 
ined in the presence of Christians and Moors^ and if she 
had taken anything with her it was to be restored and 
she was to be punished. All Christian captives were to 
be delivered without ransom and similarly all Moorish 
ones in Castile and Andalusia were to be set free. All 
the revenues of mosques and schools and charitable foun- 
datioQS were to be maintained and paid as usual into the 
hands of the alfaquies^ and the governors and magistrates 
appointed by the new sovereigns were to treat the Moors 
kindly and lovingly and anyone acting wrongfully was 
to be visited with due punishment. Even these careful 
and elaborate provisions did not wholly satisfy the Moors 
and on November 29th Ferdinand and Isabella made a 
solemn declaration in which they swore by God that all 
Moors should have full liberty to work on their lands or 
to go where they desired through the kingdoms in search 
of advantage and to maintain their religious observances 
and mosques as heretofore, while those who preferred 
could sell their property and go to Barbary.^ 

The elaborate nature of these compacts shows how care- 
fully the Moors guarded their religious freedom and how 

^ Fernandez y Gonzalez, p. 421. — Coleccion de Documentos, YIII. 
411. — Marmol Carvajal, Eebelion y Castigo, pp. 146-50. 



22 THE MUDEJAEES. 

willingly the Catholic sovereigns subordinated religious to 
political interests. Had these agreements been preserved 
inviolate the future of Spain would have been wholly 
different ; kindly intercourse would have amalgamated 
the races ; in time Mahometanism would have died out^ 
and, supreme in the arts of war and peace, the prosperity 
and power of the Spanish kingdoms would have been 
enduring. This, however, was too foreign to the spirit 
of the age to come to pass. Fanaticism and greed led to 
persecution and oppression, while Castilian pride inflicted 
humiliation even more galling. The estrangement of 
the races grew ever greater, the gulf between them more 
impassable, until the position became intolerable, leading 
to a remedy which crippled the prosperity of Spain. 

At first there seems to have been an intention to carry 
out these compacts in good faith. When Ferdinand and 
Isabella left Granada their instructions were to administer 
them in a kindly spirit and bring about the pacification 
and unity of the races. Inigo Lopez de Mendoza, Count 
of Tendilla (subsequently Marquis of Mond^jar), was 
appointed captain-general and sought to follow out this 
policy.^ Arrangements were promptly made for trans- 
porting to Barbary all Moors who desired to go, and 
many of them did so, including most of the nobles. A 
letter, in 1492, to the sovereigns says that the Abencer- 
rages went almost in a body and that in the Alpuj arras 
there were few left save laborers and officials. The con- 
tinuance of this emigration shows that the Moors were 
not altogether confident of the good faith of their new 
masters, and a letter of Ferdinand in 1498 indicates that 

^ Janer, Condicion Social, p. 19. 



INVITATION TO PORTUGUESE MOOItS, 23 

it was still going on and that he was desirous of stimula- 
ting it.^ If, however, he thus regarded his new subjects as 
undesirable he seems to have wished to increase the popu- 
lation of Mudejares — of those who through generations 
of intercourse with Christians had accommodated them- 
selves to the situation and were in every way undoubtedly 
useful to the community. When Manoel of Portugal 
decreed the expulsion of the Moors from his dominions, 
Ferdinand and Isabella issued letters, April 20, 1497, 
permitting them to enter Spain with all their property, 
either to reside or to pass through and go whither they 
pleased with their effects except gold and silver and 
other articles of which the export was prohibited. They 
were taken under the royal protection and all persons 
were warned not to molest them in any way.^ 

The contrast between this invitation and the final action 
of Philip III. measures the unwise statesmanship which 
within a century converted friendly subjects into domestic 
enemies. The process, indeed, was already commencing 
through infractions of the capitulation of Granada. Boab- 
dil, with wise distrust, had wanted it to receive papal con- 
firmation but was obliged to abandon the demand, and its 
disregard commenced with the appointment as alguazil of 

1 Coleccion de Documentos, XI. 569; XIV. 496.— Janer, p. 127. 

^ Archivo General de Simancas, Patronato Keal, Inquisicion, Legajo 
iinico, fol. 4. See Appendix No. I. 

When, in 1497, at the instance of the Castilian sovereigns, Manoel 
expelled from Portugal all Jews and Moors who refused baptism, he 
deprived the former of their children under fourteen years of age, 
causing despair which moved even the Christians to compassion. He 
spared to the jMoors this cruelty through a dread of reprisals on his 
subjects by the Mahometan powers. — Damiao de Goes, Chronica do 
Kei Dom Manoel, P. i. cap. xviii., xx. 



24 ^s:e mudejares. 

Don Pedro Venegas^ a converso, who, on his first walk 
through the streets, converted the mosque At-Tanavin 
into the church known as San Juan de los Reyes. Al- 
though the royal secretary, Hernando de Zafra, to whom 
was intrusted the interpretation of the compact, gave sat- 
isfaction by defeating an attempt to divert the revenues 
of schools and hospitals and to introduce Castilian law, 
still there was open disregard of the capitulation in the 
imposition of a tithe and a half in addition to the tithe 
formerly paid to the native kings. This was rendered 
more oppressive by farming the revenues to Moorish 
olmojarifes or tax speculators whose familiarity with the 
wealth of their compatriots and whose covetousness ren- 
dered the collection excessively burdensome. The treasury 
even made a speculation out of the transportation to Africa 
of those who expatriated themselves.^ 

Thus one after another the guarantees given at the 
surrender were shown to be but a slender protection 
against the exigencies of the conqueror. There could be 
little reliance on his good faith as far as temporal inter- 
ests were concerned, but thus far he had practically 
respected his pledges concerning religion. It remained 
to be seen how long he could resist the pressure to estab- 
lish unity of faith. 

^ Fernandez y Gonzalez, pp. 216-18. 



CHAPTER II 



XIMEKES 



Hardly had Ferdinand and Isabella obtained pos- 
session of their new conquests when, there were zealous 
prelates and frailes at the court who urged upon them 
that in gratitude to God they should give their new sub- 
jects the alternative of baptism or exile. By some process 
of reasoning they proved that this would be no violation 
of the capitulations and it was easy to show how the 
Moors would gain salvation and the land would be 
assured enduring peace. The sovereigns, however, re- 
jected these counsels, not that they were not just and 
holy, but that their new vassals were as yet unquiet and 
had not wholly laid down their arms, so that such vig- 
orous measures would infallibly provoke another war. 
Besides, we are told, as they had other conquests in view 
they did not desire to do anything unworthy of their 
plighted troth and as the work of conversion had com- 
menced auspiciously they had hopes that it could be com- 
pleted in good faith. ^ 

In fact, there appeared at first a flattering prospect 
that the Moors might be won over to Christianity. Her- 
nando de Talavera, a Jeronimite fraile, was confessor to 
Isabella, who had made him Bishop of Avila. He had 
accompanied her to the siege of Granada, and on its sur- 

^ Marmol Carvajal, p. 153. 



26 XIMENES. 

render^ impressed by the field open for missionary labor^ 
he had asked permission to resign his see in order to de- 
vote himself to the holy work. Granada in Roman and 
Gothic times had been the seat of a bishopric, the memory 
of which had been preserved in the fifteenth century by a 
series of titular bishops. Isabella had the felicitous idea 
of reviving it in the shape of an archbishopric and bestow- 
ing it on Talavera. He consented, but, desiring to avoid all 
appearance of cupidity, insisted that the revenues assigned 
to it should be moderate, and they were fixed at 2,000,000 
maravedis — considerably less than those of Avila.^ It 
would have been impossible to make a happier selection. 
Talavera was a true apostle, whose zeal was tempered 
with charity and loving kindness. He speedily gained 
the hearts of his flock, devoting his labor and his revenue 
to the relief of suffering and the practical exemplification 
of the gospel precepts. The true Christianity which he 
so faithfully represented won the affectionate veneration 
of the Moslem and rendered abundantly successful the 
work of conversion which was the object of his life. 
Many came spontaneously to ask for baptism ; the 
alfaquies themselves listened willingly to him as he ex- 
pounded Christian doctrine ; he had houses in which he 
preached and taught to all who sought instruction and 
he not only caused his missionaries to learn Arabic but 
he himself in his old age acquired it sufficiently for his 
purposes and composed an elementary grammar and 

^ Ibid. p. 152.— Avila was one of the poorer Spanish sees, with an 
income of about 8000 ducats. The revenue assigned to Granada was 
a little over 5000, but by 1510 it had increased to 10,000. — L. Marinsei 
Siculi de Eebus Hispan. Lib. iv.— Pedraza, Hist, ecles. de Granada, 
fol. 173. 



TENDENCY TOWARDS CONVERSION. 27 

vocabulary. The traditional hardness of the Moorish 
heart softened in the warmth of Christian love which he 
poured forth and the rapidly increasing number of con- 
verts gave promise that a proselytism so conducted would 
solve the most serious question which confronted Spanish 
statesmanship.^ As the century drew to its close there 
seemed indeed an encouraging tendency to general con- 
version. We hear of the Moors of Caspe, an important 
town in Aragon^ turning Christians in 1499 ; in the dis- 
trict of Teruel arid Albarracin^ which subsequently was 
noted as the most defiantly obstinate of the Moorish re- 
gions^ in 1493 a mosque was converted into the church 
of the Trinity and in 1502 the whole population became 
Christian, at least for the time.^ To stimulate the process, 
Ferdinand and Isabella by a pragmatica of October 31, 
1499, ordered that all Moorish slaves, who since the sur- 
render had been baptized, should be set free, the owners 
being compensated from the royal treasury ; any son of a 
Moor who was baptized should be entitled to receive his 
portion from his father and should subsequently inherit 
the share in the paternal estate which would otherwise 
enure to the crown. ^ 

At the same time there were ominous symptoms of a re- 
sort to less persuasive methods of propagandism. Already, 
in 1498, a letter of Ferdinand, January 28th, to the in- 
quisitor-general, shows that in Valencia the Inquisition 
was arrogating to itself jurisdiction over the Moors and 

^ Marmol Carvajal, p. 152. — Pedraza, Hist, ecles. de Granada, fol. 
174, 186-7. 

^ Archive de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 1. — Munoz, Diario Turo- 
lense, ano 1502 (Boletm, 1895, p. 10). 

^ Llorente, Aiiales de la Inquisicion, I. 254. 



28 XIMENES. 

was endeavoring to suppress the use of Moorish costume, 
although the rule was absolute that it had no cognizance 
over any one who had not by baptism become subject to 
the Church, unless, indeed, he were guilty of sacrilege or 
of seeking to convert others from Christianity. It was 
therefore a flagrant abuse of authority when the tribunal 
of Valencia undertook to prevent the wearing of Moorish 
garments and sent officials to Serra to arrest some women 
for disobedience. They were not recognized by the people 
and were maltreated while the women were conveyed 
away, whereupon the tribunal adopted the arbitrary 
measure of seizing all the inhabitants of Serra who 
chanced to come to Valencia, so that the place was 
threatened with depopulation — an excess of zeal which 
the king reprimanded, ordering greater moderation to 
be observed in future. The ringleaders in the resist- 
ance to the officials, after three years' incarceration, were 
condemned to confiscation and banishment, leading to 
considerable correspondence in 1500, in which Ferdi- 
nand showed a commendable desire to mitigate the harsh- 
ness of the inquisitors. He manifested the same dispo- 
sition towards the Moorish aljama of Fraga, which was 
concerned in the confiscation of a certain Galceran de 
Abella, and also towards the Moors of Saragossa who 
became involved with the Inquisition there by reason of 
harboring a female slave who had escaped from Borja.^ 

It was still further ominous for Granada when, in 1499, 
it was subjected to the Inquisition and was incorporated 
in the district of the tribunal of Cordova.^ To make 
matters worse, on September 7th, the infamous Diego 

^ Archive de Simancas, Inqiiisicion, Libro 1. 

^ Zurita, Historia del Eey Hernando, Lib. iii. cap. 44. 



INQ UISITION INTR OD UCED. 29 

Rodriguez Lucero was appointed inquisitor of Cordova 
and we learn from an ayuda de costa or gratuity granted 
to him^ July 27, 1500, to reimburse him for the expenses 
of a journey to Granada, Malaga and other places, that 
he had been busy in organizing his subordinates through- 
out the newly acquired territory.^ He speedily acquired 
the unbounded confidence of Ferdinand by unscrupulous 
activity which was fruitful in confiscations, and his career 
was a tissue of atrocious fraud and cruelty which in 1506 
led to a rising in Cordova and eventually to his deposition. 
We have no records as to his proceedings in Granada 
against the Moors, baptized or unbaptized, but his perse- 
cution of the Archbishop Talavera and his family, on the 
most absurd and extravagant charges of being engaged in 
a plot to convert Spain to Judaism by the arts of witch- 
craft, shows how little mercy was to be expected by those 
of lesser degree who might provoke his cupidity or 
enmity.^ 

Meanwhile Talavera, unconscious of the trouble which 
was to embitter his closing years, was earnestly pursuing 
his apostolate with constantly increasing success. Unfor- 
tunately Ferdinand and Isabella, who were in Granada 
from July until the middle of November, 1499, were not 
content with the progress of the work and desiring to 
expedite it they summoned to Talavera^s assistance the 
Archbishop of Toledo, Francisco Ximenes de Cisneros, 
who was busy at Alcala laying the foundations for his 
university. Much as Spain owes to this extraordinary 
man, his services were far overbalanced by the irrep- 

^ Archivo de Simancas, loc. cit. 

^ I have considered the career of Lucero in some detail in a paper 
in the American Historical Eeview, Vol. II. p. 611. 



30 XIMENES. 

arable mischief which he wrought in a work for which 
he was peculiarly unfitted. Of his disinterestedness there 
could be no question as well as of his zeal for religion as 
he understood it^ but he was peremptory^ inflexible and 
unforgiving, and even his admiring biographer admits 
that his temper was so imperious that he deemed force 
to be the only way of ensuring obedience and that in his 
atrabilious moods it was dangerous to approach him so 
that he sometimes acted through fury rather than pru- 
dence, as was seen in the conversion of the Granadan 
Moors and the attempt to conquer Africa.^ 

Such was the colleague allotted to the saintly Talavera, 
whose milder nature readily yielded to the stronger indi- 
viduality. For awhile they worked successfully together 
and when the sovereigns left Granada for Seville it was 
with the injunction to proceed with gentleness and not 
provoke a revolt. Ximenes threw himself into the work 
with his customary ardor. He borrowed considerable 
sums which he lavished on the principal Moors whom 
he desired to win over, giving them silken vestments 
and crimson caps, of which we are told they were inor- 
dinately proud. In conjunction with Talavera he held 
conferences with the alfaquies and morabitos — the priests 
and teachers — explaining to them the Christian doctrines, 
and leading many of them to instruct their flocks in the 
true faith with such effect that applications for baptism 
became numerous and in a single day, December 18, 1499, 

^ Gomecii de Rebus Gestis a Francisco Ximenio Lib. iv. fol. 95, 
Lib. V. fol. 128, Lib. vii. fol. 218. How much his zeal overran his 
discretion as a statesman is visible in his attempt, in 1506, to unite Fer- 
dinand, Henry VII. and Manoel of Portugal in a crusade. — Wadding. 
Annal. ann. 1506, n. 73, 



FORCIBLE CONVERSION. 31 

three thousand were baptized by the simple expedient of 
sprinkling them in a body^ and the mosque of the Albay- 
cin was consecrated as the church of San Salvador.^ 

AH this was legitimate enough^ but Ximenes showed 
his temper when^ alarmed by the progress of Christian- 
ization some of the stricter Moslems endeavored to check 
it by dissuasion. He promptly had them imprisoned in 
chains and treated with great harshness. The most promi- 
nent among them was a Zegri^ proud of his royal descent 
and distinguished by eminent personal gifts. Him 
Ximenes confided to one of his priests named Pedro 
Leon with instructions to break his spirit^ which was 
duly accomplished by starvation until the Zegri begged to 
be taken before the Christian alfaqui. In squalor and 
chained hand and foot he was brought into the presence 
of Ximenes^ when he asked to be relieved of his fetters 
in order that he might speak freely. When this was 
done he explained that the previous night Allah had 
appeared to him and commanded him to embrace the 
Christian faith^ which he was ready to do. Pleased 
with his conquest^ Ximenes had him washed^ clothed in 
silk and baptized^ when he took the name of Gonzalo 
Fernandez Zegri^ in honor of Gonzalo of Cordova^ not as 
yet the Great Captain^ with whom he had fought during 
the siege of Granada^ and Ximenes further gratified him 
with a pension of fifty thousand maravedis. 

^ It is apparent from these events that already the separation had 
been enforced between the Moors and the incoming Christians, the 
former being confined to a small Morerfa, of about 500 houses, in the 
city, known as the Antequeruela and to a larger one of some 5000 
houses occupying the Albaycin, a quarter of the town on higher 
ground, of rocky and uneven surface. The Moorish population of the 
city at the tirne was estima.ted at 40,000, 



32 XIMENES. 

Having once given way to his imperious temper it 
would seem that Ximenes could no longer control it. 
Impatient of the slow process of persuasion he imagined 
that he could end the matter at a blow and he refused to 
listen to those who urged moderation and gentleness. He 
summoned the alfaquies to surrender all their religious 
books ; five thousand were brought to him, many splen- 
didly adorned with gold and silver and priceless illu- 
minations. There were numerous applicants for these 
specimens of Moorish art^ but Ximenes refused them all 
and the whole were publicly burnt^ save a few on medi- 
cine which he reserved for the library at Alcala. All 
this foreshadowed still more forcible proceedings. The 
Moors were becoming more and more disquieted at the 
increasing disregard of their guarantees and it needed 
but a spark to cause an explosion. 

Ximenes was not long in furnishing the necessary pro- 
vocation. It will be recalled that among the provisions 
of the capitulation was one which protected all renegades 
from persecution. There appears to have been many of 
these, whoj with their children were known as elches. 
To a rigid churchman it was insupportable that one who 
had once, by baptism, been subjected to ecclesiastical 
jurisdiction, or his children who ought to have been bap- 
tized, should be exempted from it. Such cases came 
clearly within the cognizance of the Inquisition, which 
was not to be defrauded by any human compact, and 
Ximenes procured from Inquisitor-general Deza delega- 
tion of power to deal with them. He made use of this 
to arrest those who were proof against persuasion until it 
happened that one of his servants named Sacedo, with 
Bellasco de Barrionuevo, a royal alguazil, arrested in the 



TUMULT IN GBANADA. 33 

Albayciu a young daughter of an elche. As they were 
dragging her through the plaza of Bib-el-Bonut — the 
principal one in the Albaycin — she cried out that she was to 
be forcibly baptized in contravention of the capitulations ; 
a crowd collected and commenced to insult the alguazil, 
who was hated by reason of his activity in making arrests ; 
he answered disdainfully^ passions were heated and in the 
tumult he was killed with a paving-stone while Sacedo 
would have shared his fate had not a Moorish woman 
rescued him and hidden him under a bed until midnight. 
The trouble spread^ the Moors flew to arms, skirmished 
with the Christians and, regarding Ximenes as the vio- 
lator of the compact, they besieged him in his house. He 
had a guard of two hundred men who defended him until 
morning, when Tendilla came down from the Alhambra 
with troops and raised the siege. For ten days the two 
archbishops and Tendilla parleyed with the Moors, point- 
ing out the penalties they would suffer if they did not sub- 
mit before forces should come from Andalusia, to which 
they replied that they had not risen against the sover- 
eigns but in defence of the royal faith, that it was the 
officials who had caused disturbance by violating the 
capitulations and that everything would be pacified if 
these were observed. At length Talavera boldly went 
to the plaza Bib-el-Bonut with a chaplain and a few 
unarmed servants ; the sight of his calm and benevolent 
features wrought a revulsion and the Moors kissed the 
hem of his gown as they had been wont to do. Tendilla 
followed with his halberdiers, but tossed into the crowd 
his crimson cap and rode bareheaded as a sign of peace ; 
it was picked up, kissed and returned to him. Thus an 
armistice established itself ; Tendilla and Talavera urged 

3 



34 XIMENES. 

the Moors to lay down their arms and promised them 
pardon^ as it should be understood that they had not re- 
volted but only sought to maintain the capitulations^ 
which should be strictly observed for the future. To 
show his confidence Tendilla brought his wife and boys 
and placed them in a house next to the principal mosque 
and the city became quiet. The cadi Cidi Ceibona prom- 
ised to surrender to justice those who had slain the algua- 
zil, which was accordingly done ; the corregidor hanged 
four and let the rest go for the sake of peace ; the Moors 
laid down their arms and returned to work. 

To drive a population such as this to rebellion and 
despair reqnired exceptional perversity and wrongheaded- 
ness^ but these were not lacking. Tendilla and Talavera 
had counted without Ximenes^ but the latter soon made 
himself felt. During the interval rumors had reached 
Seville that Granada had revolted because Ximenes had 
attempted to Christianize it at a stroke^ and Ferdinand^ 
who had never forgiven Isabella for promoting her con- 
fessor Ximenes in 1495 to the primatial see of Toledo, 
which he wanted for his son Alfonso of Saragossa, now 
took the opportunity to reproach her bitterly with the 
result, and she wrote to Ximenes blaming him severely. 
The court anxiously awaited tidings. On the third day 
of the outbreak Ximenes had dispatched letters by a slave 
who had the reputation of making twenty leagues a day, 
but at the first tavern on the road he got drunk and took 
five days for the journey in place of two. On receiving 
Isabella's reproof Ximenes sent his faithful retainer Fran- 
cisco Ruiz and promised to follow as soon as the disturb- 
ances should cease. Ruiz removed the unfavorable im- 
pression and when Ximenes came and gave his version 



ENFORCED CONVERSION. 35 

of events he was held worthy of great honor for bring- 
ing so difficult a matter to so fortunate an ending. He 
pointed out that^ as the Moors by rebellion had forfeited 
their lives and property, any pardon should be conditional 
on their embracing Christianity or leaving the land. The 
sovereigns listened and yielded to his reasoning ; Ten- 
dilla^s promises were ignored ; the opportunity of annul- 
ling the capitulations was not to be lost^ the Moors were 
to be taught how vain was any reliance on Christian faith 
and although the issuing of the edict was postponed for 
eight months^ an impassable gulf was opened between 
the races which all subsequent action only made wider 
and deeper. 

Ximenes returned to Granada, where the inhabitants 
of the Albaycin were offered the alternative of conversion 
or punishment^ and their readiness for baptism was stimu- 
lated by a royal judge or pesqitisidor, sent for the purpose, 
who executed some of the most active insurgents and 
imprisoned others. With the assistance of Talavera 
Ximenes undertook the task of teaching the unwilling 
converts, but when they asked for instruction in their 
own language and Talavera had the offices and portions 
of the gospels printed in Arabic, Ximenes stoutly opposed 
it, saying that it was casting pearls to swine, for it 
was the nature of the vulgar to despise what they could 
understand and to reverence that which was occult and 
mysterious. If he could enforce outward conformity he 
evidently cared little for intelligent faith ; he was by 
nature an inquisitor and not a missionary. We are not 
surprised therefore to learn that Talavera was obliged to. 
baptize them without instruction or catechization, for the 
multitude was so great and the time was so short that 



36 XIMENES, 

there was no opportunity for such preliminaries. Nor 
need we wonder that such profanation of the sacra- 
ment left the neophytes as much Moslem in heart as 
before^ with undying hatred^ to be transmitted to their 
children^ towards the religion to which they had been 
forced outwardly to profess conformity and towards the 
oppressors who had shown disregard so cynical of their 
solemn engagements. Nor was that hatred likely to 
diminish as the Inquisition^ which had thus obtained 
jurisdiction over them^ harried them ceaselessly for a 
century with its spies^ its confiscations^ and its autos de 
fe. They had made one vain effort to avert their fate 
by sending to the Soldan of Egypt to represent that they 
were to be converted by force and asked him to threaten 
reprisals on the Christians within his dominions. The 
soldan accordingly dispatched envoys to Ferdinand a ad 
Isabella^ who explained the matter to their satisfaction 
and responded by sending that elegant scholar^ Peter 
Martyr of Anghiera^ on a return mission^ fortified with 
certificates from the alcaides of Barbary that all Moors 
desiring to emigrate had been landed there in safety^ for 
the sovereigns had duly accompanied the exiles with 
officials who saw to their delivery and took testimony as 
to their treatment. Peter Martyr performed his mission 
successfully and nothing further was heard from Egypt. 
The number of Christians thus brought into the fold^ in- 
cluding those of the Vega^ was estimated at from 50^000 
to 70,000.^ 

^ In all this I have principally followed Marmol Carvajal whose ac- 
count is the fullest and most in detail (Kebelion y Castigo, pp. 153-6). 
Other relations are those of Gomez (De Rebus Gestis a Fr. Ximenio, 
Lib. II. fol. 30-33); Robles, Yida de Cisneros, pp. 100, 108 (s. 1. 1604); 



GENERAL PARDON. 37 

To stimulate the process Ferdinand^ who had returned 
to Granada^ issued^ February 26, 1500, a general pardon 
to all conversos for crimes committed prior to baptism, 
remitting the royal rights over persons and property 
accruing by reason of such crimes.^ He made no secret 
of his displeasure at the unlawful means employed to 



Zurita, Historia del Key Hernando, Lib. iii. cap. 44 ; Galindez de Car- 
vajal (Coleccion de Documentos, XYIII. 296); Bernaldez, Historia de 
los Reyes Catolicos, p. 145 ; Mariana, Historia de Espana, Tom. IX. p. 
20 (Ed. 1796); Pedraza, Hist, ecles. de Granada, fol. 193, 196. 

Peter Martyr probably only repeats the stories promulgated at the 
court when he writes, March 1, 1500, that the Moors of the Albaycin 
rose in rebellion, overcame the city guard and slew its captain. Then 
they summoned aid from the country, where the Moors rose and for 
some days killed all the Christians whom they met. Those of the 
lower part of the city were in serious peril, but Tendilla garrisoned the 
wall which separated the city from the Albaycin and Talavera, who 
was universally beloved, threw himself among the rebels and won over 
the leaders partly by hope, partly by fear, so that they begged for par- 
don.— Pet. Mart. Angler. Epist. 212. See also Epistt. 215, 221. 

Some of the earlier writers do not hesitate to criticise the inconsider- 
ate zeal of Ximenes, although exercised in so pious a cause. This 
excites the ire of Fray Bleda who exclaims that such is always the 
reward of those who seek the conversion of this apostate race, no matter 
how holy is their ardor and how conformable to the rules of the Church, 
for it was perfectly lawful to compel the elches to conversion with tor- 
ture and fire, for their parents were baptized renegades and the children 
consequently belonged to the Church. — Bleda, Cronica de los Moros, p. 
626 (Valencia, 1618). 

This, at all events, is honest. ISTot so much can be said of Hefele's 
justification of the great Cardinal, which is a model of the suppressio 
veri and suggestio falsi. — Der Cardinal Ximenes und die kirchlichen 
Zustande Spaniens in 15 Jahrhundert, pp. 52 sqq. (Tiibingen, 1851). 

^ Archivo de Simancas, Patronato Beal, Inquisicion, Leg. unico, 
fol. 26. See Appendix No. II. 

It is worthy of remark that this is issued in the sole name of Ferdi- 
nand, without Isabella's participation, although Granada was annexed 
to the crown of Castile. 



38 XIMENES, 

procure the conversion^ more especially as the affair in- 
terfered with his designs on Naples, which required all 
his forces. The danger at home however demanded his 
immediate attention, for although many of the Moors of 
Granada had emigrated, others had taken refuge in the 
mountain fastnesses of the intricate range known as the 
Alpuj arras and had incited the hardy mountaineers to re- 
volt. In the hope of checking this movement Ferdinand 
wrote to the leading Moors, January 27th, assuring them 
that all reports that they were to be forcibly converted 
were false and pledging the royal faith that not a single 
one should be compelled to baptism.^ They knew too 
well how little Christian faith was worth, however, and 
were deaf to his blandishments. He had not trusted to 
it himself and with all speed he raised an army as large 
as if the conquest was to be repeated, with which he 
advanced on March 1st and soon crushed resistance, the 
rebels consenting to baptism, and to pay a fine of 50,000 
ducats ; but in so rugged a land, when a rising was sup- 
pressed in one place it would break out in another, and 
Ferdinand was occupied until the end of the year in 
superintending this military mission work, which was 
supplemented by preachers and friars sent through the 
mountains to instruct the neophytes — a duty not without 
danger for although they had guards of soldiers some of 
them were martyrized. The means adopted to spread 
the faith of Christ were not the most gentle. At Andarax 
the principal mosque, in which the women and children 
had taken refuge, was blown up with gunpowder. At 
the capture of Belfique all the men were put to the sword 

^ Clemencin, Elogia de la Keina Isabel, p. 291-3 (Madrid, 1821). 



BISINGS IN THE SIEBBAS. 39 

and the women were enslaved^ while at Nijar and Guejar 
the whole population was enslaved, except children under 
eleven, who, however, were delivered to good Christians 
to be brought up in the faith — energetic proceedings 
which, we are told, led to the baptism of ten thousand 
Moors of Seron, Tijola and other places.^ 

The risings appeared to be suppressed and, January 14, 
1501, the army was disbanded, but the example made at 
Belfique and Guejar produced an opposite effect on the 
numerous population of the district of Honda and the 
Sierra Bermeja, who feared that they would be subjected 
to enforced conversion and who were irritated by raids 
and ravages made upon them by Christians — a standing 
grievance which frequently nullified the best intentioned 
efforts of pacification. They rose and committed reprisals 
and it was necessary to summon the levies of all Andalu- 
sia. Ferdinand issued a proclamation that all who would 
not be converted must leave the kingdom within ten days, 
and care was enjoined that converts should be well treated 
and that emigrants should be protected from harm. The 
rebels of the Sierra Bermeja, however, refused to surrender 
and on February 23d the army left Ronda under Alonso 
de Aguilar, elder brother of Gonzalo de Cordova and one 
of the most distinguished captains of Spain. The Moors 
had fortified themselves in an almost inaccessible position 
at Calalui ; on March 16th, the undisciplined troops, eager 
for pillage, straggled to the attack without orders ; they 
were beaten back, and were followed by the Moors till 
Aguilar advanced and drove them back, when the sol- 
diers again fell to plundering. On seeing this the Moors 

^ Zurita — Galindez de Carvajal — Marmol Carvajal — Bernaldez, ubi 
sup. 



40 XIMENES. 

returned to the attack^ when the pillagers fled leaving 
Aguilar with a handful of men at nightfall to be sur- 
rounded and slain after a desperate resistance. The catas- 
trophe made an immense sensation throughout Spain. 
Ferdinand hastened from Granada with all the chivalry 
of his court^ intending to push the war vigorously^ but on 
recognizing the cowardice of his army and the impreg- 
nable fastnesses of the mountains he saw the impossibility 
of accomplishing anything by force of arms^ while Isa- 
bella, with feminine vehemence, declared that the Moors 
must all be driven out in a single day. While thus the 
Christians paused irresolute and uncertain, the Moors 
opened negotiations, asking to be allowed to expatriate 
themselves. Ferdinand admitted that it would be a 
greater service to God and to himself that they should 
remain Moors in Africa rather than be such Christians 
as they were in Spain, but he made a shrewd bargain that 
all might go who could pay ten doblas for the passage, 
while the rest, who constituted the majority, should stay 
and be baptized. Guards were furnished to accompany 
to the port of Estrepona those who desired to embark ; 
on these terms, by the middle of April, the insurgents of 
the Sierra de Ronda surrendered ; those of the Sierra 
Bermeja and other places waited to learn whether the first 
emigrants were safely landed in Barbary and on being 
assured of this they too came in. The con versos of the 
lowlands who had taken to the sierras were allowed to 
return home, surrendering their arms, and forfeiting their 
property, while their persons were to be at the mercy of 
the king, their lives being spared. Thus this dangerous 
rebellion, caused by the intemperate zeal of Ximenes, was 
finally quelled. Large numbers of the Moors crossed the 



LEGISLA TIVE DE VICES. 41 

sea, both under the agreement and surreptitiously , but 
they left multitudes behind to brood over their wrongs 
and to detest the faith which they had been compelled to 
profess.^ As though moreover to preserve a nucleus of 
irritation and disaffection in the land the sternest edicts 
were issued prohibiting the emigration of all new converts ; 
those attempting it were to be seized and delivered to the 
Inquisition, and all shipmasters receiving such passen- 
gers suffered excommunication and confiscation.^ Bap- 
tism had incorporated them in the Church and they should 
not escape from its jurisdiction. 

To stimulate conversion in the Alpuj arras, Ferdinand 
had issued a royal c6dula, July 30, 1500, promising that 
all conversos should be relieved of the special taxes im- 
posed on Moors, both as regards persons and property 
and should thereafter be subject to the tithes and alcavala 
(a tax on sales) like other Christians. They were in all 
respects to be equal before the laws with Christians and 
their suits were to be equitably dispatched by the ordinary 
judges.^ It was sound policy thus to assimilate them 
with the Christian population but there was too lively a 
recognition of the wrongs inflicted to render possible the 
performance of these promises, for the converts could 
never be regarded without suspicion. September 1, 1501, 
an edict forbade them to bear or possess arms, publicly 
or secretly, under penalty for a first offence of confiscation 



^ Zurita — Marmol Carvajalj uhi sup. — Bleda, Cronica, pp. 633-9. 

2 Edicts to this effect were issued Nov. 8, 1499, Jan. 15, 1502 and 
Sep. 15, 1519.— MSS. of Koyal Library of Copenhagen, 2186, p. 306. 

^ Clemencin, op. cit. p. 603. The children of those who were slain 
or captured at Lanjaron and Andarax were further promised the prop- 
erty, real and personal, of their slain or captive parents as a reward for 
conversion. 



42 XIMENES. 

and two months of prison^ and of death for a second — an 
edict which was repeated in 1511 and again in 1515.^ 
In an age of violence, when the power of self -protection 
was essential to every man, disarmament was one of the 
most cruel and humiliating of inflictions, but, as we shall 
see, this was but the first of a long series of such meas- 
ures, for wrong could only maintain itself by injustice. 

To Isabella is generally assigned the credit of the next 
step toward securing unity of faith under her Castilian 
crown. To be sure, not much confidence could be reposed 
in the sincerity of those who were converted in such arbi- 
trary fashion, but it was argued that baptism gave them at 
least a chance of salvation and if they did not avail them- 
selves of it the responsibility was theirs ; moreover, if the 
parents were not even passably good Christians, the next 
generation, reared under the kindly influence of the 
Church, would surely be better ; the kingdom of God 
would be advanced by the destruction of that of Mahomet 
and the earthly kingdom would have its peace secured by 
community of faith. Such arguments could be power- 
fully urged by the religious advisers who surrounded Isa- 
bella and it is not likely that Ximenes, who enjoyed her 
fullest confidence, would hesitate to complete the work 
which he had so auspiciously commenced in Granada. 
Strong, indeed, must have been the influences which could 
blind her to the infamy of her course. The enforced con- 
version of Granada had been, so to speak, accidental in its 
inception and a war measure in its development among 
those who were still restless and turbulent, chafing under 

^ Nueva Recopilacion, Lib. viii. Tit. ii. ley 8. 



ENFOBCED CONVERSION IN CASTILE. 43 

a new domination ; moreover free choice was offered 
to the mountaineers between conversion and expatriation 
and all who rejected baptism were allowed to depart pro- 
vided they could defray the expenses. In the older Cas- 
tilian kingdoms^ however^ the Mudejares were peaceful 
and contented subjects^ contributing to the prosperity of 
the State under compacts centuries old which secured 
them in the enjoyment of their religion and laws. Delib- 
erately to violate those compacts^ to compel a change of 
religion with scarce a colorable pretext of alternative^ was 
so gross an infraction of all divine and human law that 
even the dialectics of scholastic theology might well seem 
incapable of framing a justification^ w^hile the conversion 
of loyal and contented subjects into restless and plotting 
conspirators^ causing sleepless anxiety to generations of 
statesmen^ w^ould appear to be an act of simple insanity. 

Yet Isabella^ in her misguided zeal^ w^as capable of the 
wrong and the folly. A preliminary pragmatica of July 
20^ 1501, forbidding all Moors to enter the kingdom of 
Granada, in order to preserve the new converts from the 
infection of intercourse with the unconverted, show^s the 
line of reasoning w^hich had been adopted to work upon 
her conscience. It was impossible of enforcement, for the 
business of transportation was in the hands of the Mude- 
jares and the needs of Granada for supplies of wheat 
from its neighbors were imperative, to say nothing of the 
multifarious necessities of commerce. A more radical 
measure was requisite and, after due deliberation, on 
February 12, 1502, was issued the pragmatica which had 
such far-reaching results, beyond the possible conceptions 
of the short-sighted bigotry which dictated it. If Moors 
could not be kept out of Granada there should be no 



44 XIMENES. 

Moors — all should be Christians under the crown of Cas- 
tile, save slaves who could not be meddled with and they 
should be known by the perpetual wearing of fetters. 
Allusion was made to the scandal of allowing infidels to 
remain elsewhere when Granada had been purified^ to the 
gratitude due to God which could be rightly shown by 
expelling his enemies^ and to the necessity of protecting 
the neophytes from contamination by the infidel^ where- 
fore all Moors were ordered to quit the kingdoms of Castile 
and Leon by the end of April — that is^ all males over the 
age of fourteen and females over twelve, the children 
being retained apparently to separate them from their 
parents and rear them as Christians. The exiles were 
allowed to carry with them their property, except gold 
and silver and other prohibited articles. The sentence of 
expatriation however was purely illusory, for it was 
coupled with conditions rendering it impossible. They 
were to sail only from ports of Biscay, under pain of 
death and confiscation ; they were not to be transported 
to Navarre or to the kingdoms of the crown of Aragon, 
and as there was war with the Turks and the Moors of 
Africa they were not to seek refuge with either but were 
told that they could go to the Soldan of Egypt or to any 
other land they chose. They were never to return nor 
were Moors ever to be admitted to the Castilian king- 
doms, even temporarily, under pain of death and confis- 
cation without trial or sentence and anyone harboring 
them after April was threatened with confiscation.^ A 
comparison of this measure with the cordial invitation to 

^ Nueva Kecop. Lib. viii. Tit. ii. ley 4. Cf. Fernandez j Gonzalez, 
p. 219. 



ENFORCED CONVERSION IN CASTILE. 45 

the Moors of Portugal^ in 1497^ demonstrates how pro- 
found was the change effected in Isabella's policy by the 
arbitrary methods of Ximenes in Granada. 

Evidently criticism on the enforced conversion of 
Granada and doubts expressed whether baptism imder 
such circumstances was valid^ had made an impression 
and the new edict cunningly offered no alternative. That 
expulsion could be escaped by conversion was left to be 
inferred^ so that the conversion could be assumed to be 
voluntary and spontaneous. The hypocrisy of this is 
evident when we learn on good authority that in reality 
the alternative of exile was not granted but that when 
the term expired those who wanted to go were not per- 
mitted to depart but all were obliged to submit to bap- 
tism.^ Some show of preaching and instruction w^as made 
during the narrow interval allowed^ sufficient presumably 
to satisfy the royal conscience/ and^ as the end of the term 
approached, the unhappy Mudejares professed the faith of 
Christ in droves. A letter of April 24th, from Avila to 
the sovereigns announced that the two thousand souls of 
the aljama there will all convert themselves and none will 
go away.^ Isabella did not deceive herself as to the sin- 
cerity of her new converts, for when they manifested a 
purpose to leave their homes for regions where they would 

^ En el dicho mes de enero mandaron los Eeyes salir de sus reinos de 
Castilla j Leon todos los moros que viYian y moraban en ellos por los 
meses de marzo, abril y mayo, y aunque los mandaron salir, despues de 
llegado el plazo no lo consentieron sino que se tornasen cristianos. — 
Galindez de Carvajal ( Coleccion de Documentos, X YIII. 303-4 ) . Zurita 
however (Hist, del Eey Hernando, Lib. iv. cap. 54) while quoting Car- 
vajal, says that those who refused baptism were driven out, but he admits 
that the conversion was involuntary. 

2 Zurita, he, cit. ^ Coleccion de Documentos, XXXYI. 447. 



46 XIMENES. 

be under less careful surveillance she promptly checked 
the movement by issuing orders^ September 17th^ for- 
bidding them for two years to sell their property or to 
leave Castile for Aragon^ Valencia or Portugal except by 
land, and then they must furnish security to return as 
soon as their business was accomplished.^ 

So signal a service rendered to God might reasonably 
expect reward. It was disappointing therefore that 
Heaven afflicted the land with visitations, for the har- 
vests were deficient from 1503 to 1506 and this was fol- 
lowed in 1507 with a pestilence which fell with peculiar 
severity on the clergy. Bernaldez tells us that in Alcala 
de Guadayra out of thirteen mass-priests twelve died ; 
in Utrera four died and all the sacristans and the re- 
mainder were sick but recovered. In his own parish, out 
of 500 souls he buried 160. It was the same throughout 
Andalusia and Castile and was the worst pestilence since 
that of the year 575 when half the population of Spain 
perished. This was succeeded in 1508 by a plague of 
locusts, which flew in clouds obscuring the sun, four or 
five leagues in length and two or three in width, devour- 
ing all vegetation except the vines. ^ 

Isabella died November 26, 1504, after which, except 
during the short interlude of the reign of Philip and 

^ Llorente, Anales, I. 279. The prohibition of travel by sea was 
evidently to prevent emigration to Africa which was doubtless adopted 
by many. Fray Bleda assures us (Cronica, pp. 639-41 ) that if Torque- 
mada had been alive the expulsion would have been carried out as was 
that of the Jews, for he had not the indiscreet zeal which led others to 
induce the sovereign to attempt the conversion of the Moors by com- 
pulsion without the preliminary catechism and disposition required by 
human and divine law. 

2 Bernaldez, Historia de los Keyes Catolicos, II. 291-99, 311-14. 



FERDINAND'S POLICY, 47 

Juana in 1506^ Ferdiaand remained master of Castile as 
well as of Aragon. While sufficiently zealous for the 
faith he did not allow bigotry wholly to supersede policy 
and he recognized that contented subjects were more de- 
sirable than discontented ones. His general attitude 
towards the new converts was therefore that of restraining 
rather than of inciting persecution. The baptism of the 
Castilian Mudejares — to be known henceforth as Moris- 
cos — had placed them under the jurisdiction of the Inqui- 
sition ; it was notorious that their conversion was only 
external; that at heart they retained their ancestral faith 
and that they maintained its observances in so far as they 
could in secret; and thus they were liable when detected 
to prosecution and punishment. The extant records of 
the Castilian Inquisition of the period are scanty and 
positive conclusions from them cannot safely be drawn, 
but in so far as I have been able to examine the evidence 
it would appear that the Holy Office was still concen- 
trating its attention on the Jewish New Christians and 
at first gave little heed to the Moriscos. 

In 1507 Deza Avas forced to resign the position of in- 
quisitor-general and Ximenes succeeded to the coveted 
office. One of his earliest acts in this capacity was to 
issue to all the churches in Spain public letters specifying 
how the New Christians and their children should deport 
themselves in religious matters, how they should regularly 
attend divine service and how they were to be instructed 
in the rudiments of the faith ; also, what they should 
avoid; such as Judaic and Mahometan ceremonies, sorcery, 
magic, incantations and other superstitions introduced by 
demons.^ What warrant Ximenes found in his office for 

1 Gomecii de Kebus Gestis, Lib. iii. fol. 77. 



48 XIMENES. 

issuing such instructions to the churches it might not be 
easy to discover, but it is not likely that any zealous de- 
fender of ecclesiastical or episcopal jurisdiction had the 
hardihood to raise the question and the necessity of such 
an order, five years after the edict of expulsion, shows 
how negligent the Church had been of its duty toward its 
neophytes. It had been more active as to its material 
interests, for, when the royal fisc seized the revenues of 
the mosques which had been closed, it interposed, claim- 
ing that the property had been given, however mistakenly, 
for the service of God and therefore could not be con- 
verted to secular uses.^ 

Thus already began the complaints which we shall find 
continue to the last, that the Church ignored its respon- 
sibility and did nothing to win over and instruct those 
whom the Inquisition was persecuting for their ignorance. 
The orders of Ximenes received scant observance for we 
find Ferdinand writing to him, March 20, 1510, announc- 
ing that he was sending letters to all the prelates of his 
realm pointing out the neglect of Catholic rites by the 
New Christians of Moorish and Jewish extraction ; the 
bishops must compel their presence at mass and provide 
for their instruction and all parish priests must give to 
this their special attention.^ Simultaneously with this 
Ferdinand made application to Julius II. for a brief em- 
powering the inquisitors to treat apostate neophytes with 
a leniency not authorized by the canon law. As this was 
the first of a series of measures constantly occurring in 
the dealings with recalcitrant Moriscos, it may be as well 
to premise that inquisitors had faculties of proclaiming 

1 Pet. Mart. Angler. Epist. 286. 

' Danvila y Collado, Expulsion de los Moriscos, p. 74 (Madrid, 1889). 



EDICTS OF GRACE, 49 

what was known as an Edict of Grace, prescribing a 
term, usually of thirty days, during which all heretics 
could come forward, confess fully as to themselves and 
others, and escape confiscation and the stake, in lieu of 
which they were subjected to penance, pecuniary and 
spiritual, at the discretion of the inquisitor ; they abjured 
their errors publicly and were publicly reconciled to the 
Church. Reconciliation of itself was a grievous penalty, 
for a subsequent lapse into error was regarded as re- 
lapse, for which, according to the canons, the irrevocable 
punishment was relaxation to the secular arm, that is, 
death by fire. Moreover it inflicted serious disabilities, 
not only on the culprit but on his descendants for two 
generations by the male line and for one by the female — 
inability to hold office of honor or profit, and to obtain 
ecclesiastical preferment, besides which, under the Spanish 
law, he was forbidden to bear arms, to ride on horse- 
back and to wear silk or jewels or gold and silver orna- 
ments and to follow certain occupations, such as those of 
physicians, surgeons, druggists, etc. The Church, it will 
be seen, was not merciful to its erring children, even when 
repentant, and the term of grace Avas but indifferently 
attractive. 

As the Inquisition had no power to mitigate these pro- 
visions of the canon law and as Ferdinand was desirous to 
adopt milder measures which could only be authorized by 
the Holy See, he applied to Julius representing that since 
1492 there had been converted in Spain numerous persons 
of Jewish and Moorish race who in consequence of deficient 
instruction in the faith had not observed their obligations 
and had committed heretical crimes. In view of their 
numbers and of their recent conversion it would be in- 

4 



50 XIMENES. 

human to proceed against them with the full rigor of the 
laW; wherefore he had ordered them to be instructed in 
the faith. To give them fuller opportunity for this^ and 
that they might more willingly confess their sins and 
perform penance^ he asked that faculties should be granted 
to the inquisitors to receive to reconciliation those who 
should come within thirty days^ confess their sins and 
accept penance salutary to their souls^ without inflicting 
confiscation and the other pains and penances which the 
law enjoins and without requiring public abjuration^ for 
otherwise if they should again fall into the same errors 
there would be no possibility of saving them.^ 

It may safely be assumed that Perdinand^s request was 
granted, but its only importance lies in its statement of 
the existing condition and in its indication of his policy, 
for these Edicts of Grace labored under a limitation 
which rendered them for the most part inoperative, except 
as an exhibition of apparent clemency and as affording an 
opportunity of objurgating the apostates for hardness of 
heart. In theory the penitent was received because he 
had experienced real conversion ; as a Catholic Christian 
he must detest heresy and heretics ; the confession of his 
own offences was imperfect and fictitious unless he in- 
cluded all of which he was cognizant in others. Imper- 
fect and fictitious confession was one of the gravest crimes 
in the code of the Inquisition, it rendered nugatory all 
absolution gained by it and exposed the culprit to the 
danger of relaxation. Thus any one coming forward 
under an Edict of Grace was obliged to denounce all his 
accomplices in heresy — that is, all his family and friends 

^ Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 3, fol. 72. 



ACTIVITY OF THE INQUISITION. 51 

— and to furnish such evidence as would lead to their 
arrest and trial and torture. The records of the Inqui- 
sition^ unhappily, supply evidence only too abundant 
of the way in which parents incriminated children and 
children parents under the stress of prolonged incarcera- 
tion, skilful examination and perhaps the torture -chamber, 
but to expect those in freedom to come forward sponta- 
neously and betray their nearest and dearest presupposed 
too vile an estimate of human nature to be often realized/ 
It could only occur when a whole community took united 
action. 

Whether the combined efforts of Ferdinand and Ximenes 
aroused the Church to a sense of its duties and responsi- 
bilities we have slender means of knowing, but it may 
safely be assumed that they did not and that the Moriscos 
remained as firmly Moslem as ever, while the inquisitors 
were not as neglectful as the prelates and when the Jew- 
ish conversos became scarcer those of Moorish extraction 
kept the field of operation supplied. Thus we happen 

^ The utility of confession in discovering accomplices is exemplified 
by the case of Francisco Zafar y Kibera, a Valencian Morisco who, in 
1605, was miraculously converted and made a pilgrimage to Monserrat 
where he confessed to a priest who sent him to the inquisitors of Bar- 
celona for absolution from the censures incurred by heresy. They re- 
quired him to reveal the names of all whom he knew to be Moslems 
and on finding them to be Yalencians they sent him thither, Avhere he 
denounced no less than four thousand persons by their names. He had 
been a travelling tailor and had a large acquaintance among the Alja- 
mas.— Bleda, Cronica, p. 929. 

Guadalajara y Xavierr tells us (Expulsion de los Moriscos, fol. 159), 
as one of the evil characteristics of the Moriscos, that when obliged 
by necessity they would freely confess as to themselves but refused to 
reveal the crimes of their neighbors, wherefore they were burnt as 
negativos and excommunicated apostates. 



52 XIMENES. 

to hear of the active prosecution, in 1517, by the tribunal 
of Calahorra, of the Moriscos of Aguilar de Rio Alhama, 
C^rvera de Rio Alhama, Erze and Inestrillas, resulting 
in thirty-eight convictions. As there was no church in 
Aguilar where the neophytes could be taught, and as one 
had been commenced, King Charles generously made over 
half of the confiscations to assist in its construction and 
endowment. The next year on learning that persecuted 
Moriscos had commenced to remove to Granada in the 
hope of passing to Africa or remaining concealed, he 
graciously waived his right to the confiscations in favor 
of those who should come in under a term of grace to be 
designated.^ In a similar spirit, in 1518, on hearing that 
the inquisitors of Cuenca were arresting and prosecuting 
the Moriscos, Cardinal Adrian, the inquisitor-general, 
ordered an Edict of Grace with a term of two years while 
Charles renounced the confiscations, and this was renewed 
in 1520. A similar measure, in 1518, with the term of 
one year, checked the operations of the inquisitors of 
Cartagena who were persecuting the Moriscos of the Val 
de Ricote in Murcia ; in October, 1519, this was extended 
for another year; then, December 24, 1521, Cardinal 
Adrian writes to the inquisitors that the Moriscos have 
appealed to him for a further extension, alleging that in 
consequence of the disturbances they have been prevented 
from coming forward and confessing as to themselves and 
others ; he therefore grants a further term of six months 
from January 1, 1522, during which time those who 
confess are not to suffer confiscation, but are to be treated 
mercifully as regards penance and are not to be con- 



^ Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Lib. 4, fol. 7 ; Lib. 5, fol. 11 
Lib. 9, fol. 13. 



PEBSEO UTION M ODER A TED. 53 

demned to perpetual prison and wearing the sanbenito, 
the latter being removed as soon as they have abjured 
their errors in the public auto de fe.^ 

All this shows that the inquisitors were proceeding 
with more zeal than discretion and that their superiors 
were disposed to listen to the appeals of the sufferers, 
recognizing the supreme absurdity of expecting sincere 
adherence to a faith imposed by force and known only as 
the source of persecution and spoliation. Still, there were 
the canons, the machinery for their enforcement and the 
obligation of vindicating the faith on the apostates who 
were legally members of the Catholic Church. A situa- 
tion had been created from which there was no escape 
and every attempt to find an exit only aggravated the 
difficulties until despair of a reasonable remedy brought 
about the final catastrophe. Meanwhile thus far the dispo- 
sition was to temporize and postpone energetic proceedings. 
This doubtless explains the action of Cardinal Adrian, 
August 5, 1521, in issuing general orders that no arrests 
should be made except on testimony directly conclusive 
of heresy and even then the evidence must first be sub- 
mitted to the decision of the Suprema, or supreme council 
of the Inquisition.^ As usual the inquisitors interpreted 

^ Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 4, fol. 97 ; Lib. 9, fol. 
2, 29 ; Lib. 940, fol. 69, 131, 185. 

The sanbenito, a sort of yellow tunic with a red oblique band, to be 
constantly worn in public, was one of the penalties attaching to recon- 
ciliation and was a very severe infliction as it was an indelible mark of 
disgrace. It was heightened by the fact that a counterpart, with an in- 
scription of the name and date and offence, was hung up in the parish 
church in perpetual evidence of the crime and its punishment. 

^ Ibid. Libro 939, fol. 89. It should be borne in mind that mere 
arrest by the Inquisition was in itself a very serious punishment. All 



54 XIMENES, 

these instructions to suit themselves^ and Adrian's suc- 
cessor as inquisitor-general; Archbishop Manrique, was 
more explicit in a carta acordada, or general order of 
April 28; 1524. This recites the conversion of the 
Moriscos by Ferdinand and Isabella^ who promised them 
graces and liberties, in pursuance of which Cardinal 
Adrian issued many provisions in their favor, ordering 
inquisitors not to prosecute them for trifling causes, and 
if any were so arrested they were to be discharged and 
their property be returned to them. Notwithstanding 
this inquisitors arrest them on trivial charges and on the 
evidence of single witnesses. As they are ignorant per- 
sons who cannot easily prove their innocence and have 
never been instructed in the faith, these arrests have 
greatly scandalized them and they have petitioned that 
they may not be worse treated, wherefore the Suprema 
instructs all inquisitors not to arrest any of them without 
evidence of their having committed some offence directly 
conclusive of heresy ; if there is doubt on this point the 
testimony is first to be submitted to the Suprema. All 
persons held for matters not plainly heretical are to have 
speedy justice tempered with such clemency as conscience 
may permit.^ 

It is not to be imagined that these well-intentioned 
instructions were effective in removing the abuses of 
which the Moriscos complained. The inviolable secrecy 

the property of the prisoner was at once seized and sequestrated and he 
was imprisoned incommunicado until his trial was ended, which usually 
occupied from one to three years, during which his family were in 
total ignorance of his fate and he could know nothing about them. 
The expenses of his maintenance in prison were paid out of his seques- 
trated estate which was apt to be consumed in the process. 
^ Danvila y CoUado, Expulsion de los Moriscos, p. 89. 



NAVABBE. 55 

which shrouded all the actions of the tribunals relieved 
the inquisitors of responsibility and their use of the power 
with which they were clothed depended almost wholly on 
individual temperament. Whether their power was well or 
ill employed they at least secured outward conformity. 
The Moriscos of Castile were gradually assimilating them- 
selves to their Christian neighbors ; they had long since 
abandoned their national language and dress and they now 
were assiduous in attendance at mass and vespers, the 
confessional and the sacrament of the altar ; they took 
part in interments and processions and were commonly 
regarded as Christians, whatever might be the secrets of 
their hearts.^ 

When, in 1512, Ferdinand conquered Navarre he an- 
nexed it to the crown of Castile, where the royal power 
was more absolute than in Aragon. This brought the 
Mud6jares there under the operation of the edict of 1502, 
giving them the alternative of emigration or of baptism. 
It cost them comparatively little to transfer themselves 
to the French portion of the dissevered kingdom and it 
would seem that, as a rule, they preferred this to baptism 
and subjection to the Inquisition, which Ferdinand had 
lost no time in introducing in his new dominions. As 
early as 1516 we are told that from this cause there were 
two hundred uninhabited houses in the town of Tudela, 
and thenceforth we hear nothing of Moriscos in Navarre.^ 

^ Bleda, Cronica, p. 905. 

2 Yanguas j Miranda, Diccionario de Antigiiedades del Keino de 
Navarra, 11. 434 (Pamplona, 1840). 

Yanguas (p. 428) prints the very liberal charter accorded to the 
Moors of Tudela by Alonso el Batallador when he obtained possession 
of the city in 1114. It shows the same policy as that followed in the 



56 XIMENES, 

The properties thus abandoned were confiscated, for in 
1519 a letter of the Suprema required the titles of all 
lands of the expelled Moors to be submitted to the 
inquisitors there.^ 

But a new act of the tragedy was now about to open 
which requires a review of some antecedent events. 

rest of Spain during the Reconquest. When the crown passed to the 
House of Capet, Louis Hutin confirmed all the fueros and franchises 
of the Mudejares in 1307, and in 1368 Charles le Mauvais granted to 
those of Tudela a remission of half their taxes for three years as a 
reward for their assistance in his wars, especially in fortification and 
engineering. — Ibid. p. 433. 

^ Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 72, P. i. fol. 173. 



CHAPTER III 



THE GERMANIA. 



Thus far we have been dealing with the kingdoms of 
the crown of Castile^ of which the policy with regard to 
the Moors was determined during the joint reign of Ferdi- 
nand and Isabella. Outside of these lay the kingdoms 
of the crown of Aragon — Aragon^ Valencia and the prin- 
cipality of Catalonia — which were ruled by Ferdinand 
alone. They had preserved much more of their ancient 
liberties than had their sister states ; they were jealous of 
their fueros or laws and privileges and their cortes still 
were bodies with which their princes had to reckon, for 
their petitions of grievances had precedence over the 
votes of supplies long after the cortes of Castile were 
forced to invert the order of procedure. The ruling 
classes set a high value on their Moorish vassals who 
cultivated the land and paid heavy imposts, while loans to 
their aljamas were a favorite investment for prelates and 
ecclesiastical foundations. It had passed into a proverb 
that ^^Mientras mas Moros mas ganancia^^ — ^Hhe more 
Moors the more profit. ^^ Strong influences were there- 
fore at work to preserve the status in quo ; any disturb- 
ance threatened loss, and if the Moors, on receiving 
baptism, should reach equality before the law with Old 
Christians, their lords dreaded a notable diminution of 
revenue. To the last this interested conservatism was 



58 THE GERMANIA, 

the object of ceaseless objurgation by the zealots who 
labored at first for forcible conversion and subsequently 
for expulsion. 

This conservatism did not fail to manifest itself as soon 
as the alarm was given by the occurrences in Granada and 
Castile — indeed^ it was somewhat premature for, as early as 
1495, the cortes of Tortosa obtained from Ferdinand a fuero 
that he would never expel or consent to the expulsion of 
the Moors of Catalonia. After the edict of 1502 in Cas- 
tile it was currently reported that Ferdinand would follow 
the example, leading the cortes of Barcelona in 1503 to 
exact from him a pledge to the same effect, and in 1510 
at the cortes of Monzon he repeated this with the addition 
that he would make no attempt to convert them by force 
nor throw any impediment on their free intercourse with 
Christians to all of which he solemnly swore an oath the 
repetition of which was exacted of Charles V. on his 
accession in 1518.^ 

Ferdinand, in fact, had already interposed in his im- 
perative fashion to check the indiscreet zeal of the inqui- 
sitors who were abusing their power to compel conversions 

^ Danvila y Collado, La Expulsion, pp. 75, 76. — Fernandez j Gon- 
zalez, p. 441. — Bleda, Cronica, p. 641. — The Latin version of this 
fuero, as given by Bleda (Defensio Fidei, p. 156) is — ^'Facimus forum 
sive legem novam ut Mauri vicini stantes et habitantes in villis Eegiis 
et aliis civitatibus, villis et locis ac ruribus ecclesiasticorum, hom- 
inum divitum, nobilium, equitum, civium et aliarum quarumlibet 
personarum, non expellantur aut ejiciantur neque exterminentur a 
Regno Valentise neque a civitatibus aut villis Regiis illius, neque 
cogantur fieri Christiani ; cum velimus sitque nostra voluntas ut neque 
per nos neque per successores nostros fiat ullum obstaculum prsedictis 
Mauris dicti Regni in commerciis, in negotiis et contractibus inter 
Christianos et cum Christianis, sed potius ut libere possint haec agere 
in posterum sicut hactenus consueverunt. " 



COERCED CONVEBSION PROHIBITED. 59 

indirectly. On the complaint of the Duke and Duchess 
of Cardona, the Count of Ribagorza and other magnates, 
he wrote in 1508 to the inquisitors, reproving them 
sharply for overstepping the law, with much scandal to 
the Moors and damage to their lords. No one, he says, 
should be converted or baptized by force, for God is served 
only when conversion is heartfelt, nor should any one be 
imprisoned for simply telling others not to turn Christian. 
In future no Moor is to be baptized unless he applies for 
it ; any who are in prison for counselling others against 
conversion are to be released at once and the papers are 
to be sent to the Inquisitor-general of Aragon, Juan de 
Enguera, Bishop of Yich, for instructions, nor shall any 
one be arrested in future without his orders. As it is 
further said that some have fled in fear of forcible con- 
version or imprisonment, steps must be taken to bring 
them home with full assurance against future violence.^ 
Similarly, in 1510, when some Moors in Aragon had 
been converted, and had consequently been abandoned by 
their wives and children, Ferdinand ordered the inquisi- 
tors to permit the latter to return but not to exert pressure 
on them or baptize them forcibly. This indicates that a 
slow process of conversion was going on, and the same is 
seen in the case of a Catalan alfaqui named Jacob Tellez, 
who had sought baptism and had brought over several 
al jamas ; Ferdinand, to aid him in his missionary work, 
issued to him a licence to travel everywhere and to have 
entrance into all aljamas where the Moors were required 
to assemble and to listen to him.^ Incidents such as these 

1 ArcMYO de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 926, fol. 76. (See Ap- 
pendix No. III. ) 

2 Ibid. Libro 3, fol. 132, 245. 



60 THE GERMANIA, 

might encourage the hope that in time Christianity would 
win its way by gentleness and persuasion. The neo- 
phytes were not always firm in the faith but the policy 
adopted in Aragon as in Castile was not to handle them 
too roughly. We have seen how, in 1502, the Moors of 
Teruel and Albarracin had sought baptism in a body ; 
such wholesale conversions were apt to furnish back- 
sliders, and when the Inquisition took action against them 
Charles V.^ in 1519, interposed; he understood, he said, 
that many of the children of the conversos who had re- 
lapsed were desirous of returning to the faith but were 
deterred by fear of punishment, wherefore he granted 
them a term of grace of a year during which they could 
come in and confess without undergoing confiscation, and 
similar concessions were made in Tortosa and other cities.^ 
Valencia, which had the most crowded Moorish popu- 
lation, was also the scene of considerable proselyting and 
of vigorous inquisitorial activity. The little town of 
Manices (partido of Moncada) must have been converted 
almost in mass, for we chance to have a sentence passed 
in bulk, by the inquisitors of Valencia, April 8, 1519, 
in the church there, on 232 Moriscos, then present, who 
had come in under an Edict of Grace, confessing and 
abjuring their errors, and who were received to recon- 
ciliation. Apparently there was no confiscation and the 
penances inflicted were purely spiritual, but they were 

^ Arcliivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 14, fol. 80 ; Libro 940, 
fol. 69, 131, 185. 

At the same time the Moors were not allowed to establish new mosques 
and the Inquisition was active in preventing it. In 1514 the Suprema 
ordered Inquisitor Calvo of Valencia to tear down the one recently 
erected so that not a trace of it should be left and in 1519 it thanked 
the inquisitors for ordering the destruction of one recently built at 
Ayora.— Ibid. Libro 72, P. i. fol. 1, 64. 



PERSECUTION. 61 

subjected to the severe customary disabilities and there is 
ghastly evidence of the cruel work that had been going 
on in the fact that in the list of these penitents no less 
than thirty-two are described as the wives or daughters 
of men who had been burnt/ However conformable 

^ Archivo Historico Nacional, Inq. de Valencia, Legajo 98. 

From the materials at my disposal it is impossible to compile abso- 
lutely accurate statistics as to the activity of the Valencian Inquisition at 
this time, but it can be approximated, premising that as yet there were 
a certain number of Jiidaizing conversos mingled with the Moriscos. 
There is a list iuhi sup. ) of all the cases of heresy tried by that tribunal 
from 1461 to 1592. Starting with 1512, after two or three previous 
years of comparative inactivity, we find the numbers to be as follows : 

1512, 32 cases. 1516, 41 cases. 1520, 36 cases. 

1513, 41 " 1517, 25 " 1521, 31 '' 

1514, 63 '^ 1518, 21 '' 1522, 40 "• 

1515, 34 '' 1519, 22 '' 1523, 37 '' 

Danvila y Collado (Expulsion, p. 87) is evidently in error when he 
says that unpublished records show that between 1515 and 1522 the 
Valencian Inquisition burnt 250 persons, scourged 155 and tried 1090. 
The whole number of trials for heresy in those years was 250. I can- 
not ascertain positively the number of burnings, but it was compara- 
tively small. I have a record of them from 1486 to 1593, but it is 
imperfect, ending with the letter N. — for these indexes to the registers 
are always arranged alphabetically, under the Christian names. From 
other extensive lists I find that this portion of the alphabet comprises 
just four-fifths of the whole, so that if we add 25 per cent, to the fol- 
lowing we shall have a substantially correct statement of the number 
of burnings — those in effigy being persons who were dead or fugitives. 

In effigy. 



1512 


In person. 
1 


In effigy. 
8 


1518 


In person, 
none 


1513 


12 


1 


1519 


none 


1514 


52 


8 


1520 


27 


1515 


none 




1521 


8 


1516 


none 




1522 


6 


1517 


4 


6 


1523 


8 



(Archivo Historico Nacional, Valencia, Legajo 300). 

The aggregate of these is 154, or, with the addition of 25 per cent., 
192. For the years specified by Danvila the numbers would be 54 and 



62 THE GEBMANIA, 

this may have been to the ideas of the period it neces- 
sarily acted as a powerful deterrent to the wished for 
conversion of the infidels^ who^ so long as they remained 
unbaptized were not subject to prosecution and who might 
well hesitate to render themselves liable to imprisonment^ 
trial and confiscation for abstaining from pork and wine 
or for staining their nails with henna. 

While thus the efforts to preserve the purity of the 
faith were preventing its propagation^ the whole face of 
affairs was suddenly changed by the revolt known as the 
Germania or Brotherhood^ which broke out in 1520. 
This was a rising of the commons against the cruelty and 
oppression of the nobles^ orderly at first^ when it received 
the approbation of Cardinal Adrian^ regent of the king- 
dom in the absence of Charles V. Excesses on both 
sides led to open civil war^ in which the Moors were 
faithful to their lords. They formed a considerable por- 
tion of the forces with which the Duke of Segorbe won 
the victories of Oropesa and Almenara^ early in July^ 
1521^ and they constituted a third of the infantry under 
the Viceroy Mendoza in the disastrous rout of Gandia, 
July 25th. This revived the race hatred which had been 
slowly dying out and led the chiefs of the Germania to 
conceive the idea of baptizing them by force^ not as a 
measure of religious zeal but as an act of hostility to the 

68 — a quite sufficient evidence of the pitiless character of the persecu- 
tion. 

With regard to the total number of cases of all kinds it must be 
borne in mind that the greater portion of the business of the Inquisi- 
tion consisted in the suppression of blasphemy, sorcery and the utter- 
ance of careless words, classed as '^proposiciones,'^ for all of which 
scourging was a frequent punishment. None of these cases would be 
included in the above lists which are exclusively of trials for heresy. 



FORCIBLE GONVEBSIOK 63 

nobles^ thus emancipating them^ giving them the status 
of Christians^ and depriving their lords of the support 
arising from their numbers and fidelity. The first indica- 
tion of this^ in the city of Valencia^ Avas on July 4^ 1521, 
when a Franciscan appeared at the gate of his convent, 
brandishing a crucifix and shouting " Long live the faith 
of Christ and war to the Saracens ! ^^ A crowd assembled 
with which he marched out of the city, but the Marquis 
of Zenete, deputy governor, who had the confidence of 
both parties, persuaded him to wait till the next day and 
then dispersed the band.^ The movement however had 
actively commenced earlier elsewhere, for Urgelles, the 
chief in command of the Germania, mortallv wounded at 
the siege of Jativa, which surrendered July 14th, was 
already busily engaged in forcing baptism on the Moors 
in the places under his control.^ He was succeeded by 
Vicente Peris, who, on July 25th, won the decisive victory 
of Gandia, placing all the neighboring territory at the 
mercy of the Agermanados, wandering bands of whom 
at once scattered over the country, pillaging and forcing 
the Moors to submit to baptism. Peris himself laid 
siege to the castle of Polop, in which many Christians 
and some eight hundred Moors had taken refuge. After 
a cannonade of four days the castle surrendered, paying 
a ransom and conceding the baptism of the Moors, who 
were promised safety of life and property. They were 
placed in the barbican of the castle, when there came a 
report that the Moors of Chirles were advancing to rescue 

^ Danvila y Collado, La Germania de Valencia, pp. 146, 471. 

^ Informacio super Conversione Sarracenorum. — This is the report of 
a commission deputed in 1524 to ascertain whether the Moors were 
voluntarily or coercively baptized. I possess the original document. 



64 THE GEEMANIA. 

them : the cry of ^^ Kill them ?^ arose, they were massa- 
cred to a man and abundant spoils were obtained from 
the dead.^ In September Peris returned to the city of 
Valencia, in order to interrupt negotiations which were 
on foot for a settlement ; while there he held a council in 
which was declared a war of extermination, of which one 
article ordered the baptism of all Moors, so that they might 
pay no greater imposts than those of Old Christians.^ 

This was superfluous, save as an indication of policy, 
for by this time the work of conversion was wellnigh 
accomplished in all places which the Agermanados could 
reach. Although the extreme measures of Polop were 
not employed, there was no pretence of persuasion and 
there was no hesitation at murder as a means of intimida- 
tion. At Jativa the killing of two, the burning of the 
gate of the Moreria and the threat to sack it sufficed. 
From there Urgelles sent word to Albayda that they 
must all within three days turn Christians or depart or 
he would kill them ; the magistrates told them that they 
could not protect them ; they sent envoys to Urgelles 
who replied that the banner of the Germania would not 
return to Valencia until all the Moors were baptized, 
whereupon they submitted, especially as a force of three 
thousand Agermanados from Orihuela came there with 
threats of pillage and after the rout of Gandia sent them 
word that they would kill them. There were many 
refugees from the surrounding country in Albayda and 
all were taken in groups of from twenty to fifty to the 
church for baptism, giving every sign of unwillingness. 
At Consentaina, when, on July 29th, the news came of 

1 Danvila y Collado, Germania, p. 155. ^ Ibid. p. 163. 



FORCIBLE CONVERSION, 65 

the rout of Gandia^ it was followed by a troop of men 
from Alcoy^ who marched through the town to the 
Moreria, and soon after came the bands from Orihuela 
and commenced to sack it ; a Moor on the tower of 
the mosque killed one with a cross-bow^ whereupon 
the Christians slew ten or fifteen of them and the 
rest rushed weeping and crying '' Christianos ! ^^ to the 
church to be baptized^ or sought shelter in the houses 
of their Christian friends^ or escaped to the Sierra de 
Bernia. At Oliva^ the soldiers of Orihuela drove the 
Moors in droves to the church for baptism, striking and 
robbing them, while the latter were crying ^^Sancta 
Maria, have mercy, the hour has come ! ^^ Subsequently 
a good fraile of el Pi armed with a crucifix brought in 
a little band of twenty or thirty to save their lives ; dead 
Moors were lying on the road-sides, the Moreria of Ole- 
vagra was set on fire and two sick Moors were burnt in 
their homes. At Gandia, on the very day of the rout, 
the Agermanados celebrated their victory by killing some 
Moors and dragging the rest to the church, shouting 
" Death to the Moors ! ^^ and " Dogs be baptized ! ^^ 
They ordered the priests to get to work and the process 
lasted for several days as bands were brought in from 
the vicinage, and a witness stated that he saw a hundred 
and fifty dead Moors between the tower gate and San 
Antonio. At Valldigna the men of Alcira came with 
two frailes carrying crucifixes and proclaiming that all 
Moors must turn Christians or die ; they pillaged the 
monastery and castle where property had been stored 
for safety, killed some of the INIoors ^vho had sought ref- 
uge in the mountain of Toro, and gave the rest two hours 
in which to choose between baptism and death — a term 



66 THE GEBMANIA, 

which was subsequently extended to eight or ten days. 
Such were the scenes which were enacted in all places 
controlled by the Agermanados and the only redeeming 
feature of the cruel business is the frequent evidence 
through it all of friendly relations between Christian and 
Moor, of refuge and protection willingly given to the 
terrified victims, showing how the antagonism of race 
had been dying out and its extinction might have been 
hopefully anticipated but for this new infliction of wrong.^ 
There was also an attempt to convert the mosques into 
churches. In a few places they were consecrated ; in 
others a paper picture of Christ or the Virgin was hung 
up, or was placed on the door. Occasionally divine 
service was performed, which the new converts attended 
with more or less regularity, but their adhesion to the 
faith imposed on them was brief. In some cases it 
lasted but for three weeks, in others for a few months ; 
as soon as they felt that danger was over they reverted 
to their Moslem rites and worshipped in their mosques 
as before. For the most part they were encouraged to 
this by their lords, who assured them that the enforced 
baptism which they had received was invalid and that 
they were free to return to their old religion. There 
was also a certain Micer Torrent, a jurist of Jativa, who 
seems to have followed closely after the proselyting bands, 
assuring the conversos that they were not truly baptized. 
We hear of him at Alcira, Alberich and Yalldigna, at 
the latter of which places he uttered threats as to what 
King Charles would do and assured them that the king 
had ordered that those who had received baptism with- 

^ MS, Inforinacio. 



ACTION OF THE INQUISITION. 67 

out chrism were not Christians^ while those on whom 
chrism had been used could nullify it with the use of 
lye and water — a doctrine which relieved the fears of 
many/ Others made matters safe by escaping to Africa 
and it was estimated that no less than five thousand 
houses were thus left vacant^ which would infer an emi- 
gration of some 25^000 souls.^ 

The Germania was suppressed in 1522, its last strong- 
holds, Alcira and Jativa holding out until December. 
With the restoration of order the Inquisition began to 
take steps to garner the new harvest which the violence 
of the Agermanados had procured for it. Inquisitor 
Churruca had no conscientious doubts as to the validity 
of the sacraments which brought under his jurisdiction 
so large an accession of notorious apostates, but in order 
to prosecute it was necessary to prove in each individual 
case that the party had undergone the ceremony. The 
haste and confusion had been great and the multitudes 
greater ; in the majority of places the officiating priests 
had been unable to make out lists or registers of the con- 
verts and identification was difficult. Where such lists 
had been kept he demanded their surrender, evidently 
for the purpose of compiling records which would prove 
serviceable to the tribunal in its future operations and 
toward the close of 1523 we find him busy in examining 
witnesses who could furnish him with the names of those 



^ Ibid. — Danvila (Germania, p. 379) prints evidence to the effect 
that at Alberich Micer Torrent offered to enable the baptized to live as 
Moors for half a ducat a piece ; also that he would communicate a 
papal brief, for a ducat per family, whereby they could turn Moors on 
washing the body and forehead with lye and ashes. 

2 Danvila, p. 184. 



68 THE GEEMANIA. 

whom they had seen baptized.^ At the same time he was 
prosecuting those on whom he could lay his hands. In 
October^ 1523^ the fragment of a trial of Hagan^ son of 
En Catola, otherwise Jeronimo, shows that the case turned 
on the proof of his being among the Moors who were bap- 
tized at Jativa. In November testimony is being taken 
against Haxus^ a Moorish girl^ whose father and mother 
must also have been on trial for they testified that they 
and all their eight children had turned Christians and 
had then lived as Moors. Haxus said that she had 
never gone to mass^ for fifteen days she had lived neither 
as Christian nor Moor and then had returned to Moorish 
ways in which she intended to persevere^ but on Decem- 
ber 18th she weakened and begged for mercy. There 
was no disposition to be harsh with such cases and under 
instruction from the Suprema she was simply penanced 
by being required to go for two months to the church of 
San Juan, to give some alms and to learn the Catholic 
prayers.^ A reference in the sentence, moreover, to abso- 
lution being temporary until an expected brief of the 
pope is received shows that the perplexities of the situa- 
tion were recognized and that application had been made 
to the Holy See for a remedy. It would further appear 
that Cardinal Adrian adopted the policy of a wise tolera- 
tion which, after his elevation to the papacy, the advo- 
cates of the Moriscos argued amounted to a dispensation 
for their apostasy.^ 

^ MS. Informacio. — Danvila, Germania, p. 473. 

^ Archive Historico Nacional, Inquisicion de Valencia, Legajo 299, 
fol. 400.— Dan Vila, p. 474. 

^ Loazes, Tractatus super nova paganorum Kegni Valentise Conver- 
sione, col. 12 (Yalentise, 1525). — ^'Etquod summi pontificis dispeu- 



EFFORTS TO COMPLETE THE WORK. 69 

The situation^ in fact^ was quite sufficiently complex. 
In Granada and the Castilian kingdoms^ enforced con- 
version had been universal. Every Moor had^ construc- 
tively at least^ become a Morisco or convert and could be 
legally held to the consequences^ but in Valencia conver- 
sion had been partial and tumultuous^ records were lack- 
ing and no one knew what part of the population was 
Moorish and what part was technically Christian^ nor 
even whether^ in any given case, the sacrament so hur- 
riedly and irregularly administered had been rightfully 
performed. The simplest solution which offered itself 
seemed to be to complete the work so auspiciously com- 
menced and to convert the whole Moorish population, 
and for this purpose missionaries were sent to try the art 
of persuasion, while the opposition of the nobles was 
averted by conceding that their rights over their Moorish 
vassals should not be impaired by conversion and that 
converts should nof be allowed to change their domicile.^ 
The most prominent of these missionaries was the well- 
known humanist, Fray Antonio de Guevara, subsequently 
Bishop of Guadix and then of Mondonedo, who, in a letter 
of May 22, 1524, says that by command of the emperor 

satio intervenerit patet ; nam summus pontifex Adrian us, dum in istis 
Aragonise partibus resideret et plenam notitiam dicti baptismi sic 
violenter recepti et qualiter pagani postea cessante violentia ad primse- 
vos ritus redierunt haberet, visus fuerit eos tollerando et aliter non 
providendo super eorum tollerantiam cum eisdem dispensare." 

Adrian, after his election to the papacy, January 9, 1522, remained 
in Spain until August 4th, without resigning his office as inquisitor- 
general. 

^ Danvila, Germania, p. 489. 

The nobles derived from the Moors double the imposts and revenues 
that they could from Christians. — Sandoval, Historia de Carlos V., 
Lib. XIII. 3 xxviii. 



70 THE GERM AN I A. 

he had labored for three years in Valencia^ during which 
he had done nothing but dispute in the aljamas^ preach 
in the Morerias and baptize in the houses^ besides suffer- 
ing many insults. He reveals one of the secrets which 
go far to explain the ill -success of the Spaniards in their 
efforts to win the Moors to Christianity^ for he tells the 
friend to whom he is writing that, after great labor and 
the opposition of the whole Morisma of Oliva, he had 
converted and baptized the honored Cidi Abducarim 
after which his friend had called Cidi a dog of a Moor 
and an infidel. When he reproved his friend the latter 
made matters worse by saying that in his country it was 
an old custom to call all new converts Moors or Marranos 
— a term of infinite contempt. Guevara points out to him 
the evils resulting from this and the depth of insult which 
it conveys, as it infers perjury, treachery and apostasy.^ 

Not only thus was there uncertainty as to the baptism 
of individuals but the question was raised as to the 
validity of the sacrament as administered under the 
terrorism of the Agermanados. In Granada the Moors 
had been rebels and their conversion was a condition 
agreed to on pacification. In Castile there had been the 
simple edict of expulsion with a tacit understanding that 
it would not be enforced on those who asked for baptism. 
In Valencia however the sovereign was under a solemn 
oath that no compulsion should be employed ; the Ager- 
manados had themselves been rebels and as soon as their 



^ Ant. de Guevara, Epistolas familiares, pp. 639-42 (Madrid, 1595). 

Charles V. in the Edict of Granada, 1526, forbade the mutual call- 
ing each other dogs under penalty for a Morisco of ten days^ imprison- 
ment and for a Christian of six days, with double for a second offence. 
— JSTueva Kecop. Lib. viii. Tit. ii. ley 13. 



VALIDITY OF THE BAPTISM. 71 

power was withdrawn the Moors had universally treated 
the baptism as invalid and had returned to the rites of 
their fathers^ while the Inquisition had assumed its validity 
and had prosecuted such apostates as it could reach. A 
discussion inevitably arose both as to the validity of en- 
forced baptism, the degree of coercion exerted in the 
present case and the sufficiency of the rite so hastily and 
irregularly performed. 

It was a principle of the Church, handed down from 
primitive times, that the faith is not to be spread by force 
or violence. It was also a dogma that the sacrament of 
baptism impresses an indelible character ; that the neo- 
phyte belongs irrevocably to the Church. Even before 
Christianity had so lost its early purity as to render com- 
pulsory conversion possible, St. Augustin, in his contro- 
versy with the Donatists over the question of the integrity 
of the sacraments in unworthy hands, had asserted that 
the belief and intention of him who is baptized has much 
to do with his salvation but has nothing to do with the 
validity of the sacrament.^ A further step was taken 
when the Spanish Goths undertook to persecute their 
Jews into Christianity; they formulated the policy which 
became current in the Church — that the Jews ought not 
to be coerced to baptism but that when baptized in what- 
ever fashion they were to be forced to remain in the 
Church lest the name of the Lord be blasphemed and 
their adopted faith be rendered contemptible — a hideous 
principle which was duly carried through the canons and 
served as a justification for vitiating in practice the essen- 
tial genius of Christianity and as an excuse for unnum- 

^ S. Augustini de Baptismo, Lib. ni. cap. xiv. 



72 THE GEEMANIA, 

bered horrors;^ lii the repeated papal instructions to the 
early inquisitors to treat as heretics all Jews and Saracens 
who had been converted and relapsed^ there is no excep- 
tion in favor of those whose conversion had been coerced^ 
and Boniface VIII., while pretending to exempt those 
whose coercion had been absolute, took care to define 
that the fear of death is not such coercion, a decision 
which was embodied in the canon law.^ When the 
schoolmen came to reduce these incongruities to a system 
they discovered that there were two kinds of coercion, con- 
ditional or interpretative and absolute, and that coerced 
volition is still volition, while their definition of condi- 
tional coercion was so elastic that there was nothing left 
for absolute save that if a man were tied hand and foot 
and was baptized in that condition while uttering protests, 
the baptism would be invalid.^ The sacrament thus 

^ Concil. Toletan. IV. ann. 633, cap. 57. — Ivonis Decret. P. i. cap. 
276. — Gratiani Decret. P. i. Dist. xlv. cap. 5. 

2 Gregor. PP. X. Bull. Turhato corde, ann. 1273 ; Mcholai PP. 

IV. Bull. Turhato corde, ann. 1288 ; Gregorii PP. XI. Bull. Admodum, 
ann. 1372 (BuUar. Eoman. I. 155, 159, 263).— Cap. 13 in Sexto, Lib. 

V. Tit. ii. 

^ Hostiensis Aurese Summse Lib. iii. de Baptismo ? 11 ; Lib. v. de 
Judseis I 5. — S. Th. Aquin. Summse P. in. Q. Ixviii, Art. 8 ad 4 ; Q. 
Ixix. Art. 9 ad 1. — S. Bonaventura in IV. Sentt. Dist. iv. P. i. Art. 
2, Q. 1. — S. Antonini Summse P. ii. Tit. xii. cap. 2, | 1. — Summa 
Sylvestrina s. v. Baptismus iv. ^ 10. — Loazes, Tractatus, col. 14. Al- 
bertus Magnus, however, admits that a protest uttered at the time of 
baptism invalidates it (In IV. Sentt. Dist. vi. Art. 10). Duns vScotus 
agrees with this and adds that internal opposition prevents the recep- 
tion of the sacrament although the Church assumes consent and coerces 
the convert to the observance of the faith (In IV. Sentt. Dist. iv. Q. 
4, 5). Towards the end of the fifteenth century Angiolo da Chivasso 
admits that the question is doubtful and that some doctors deny validity 
under coercion (Summa Angelica s. v. Baptismus vi. |^ 6, 12). 



VALIDITY OF THE BAPTISM. 73 

became a fetish, reverence for which overcame all consid- 
eration for its real significance. Yet to the last there 
were learned doctors who maintained that the coerced 
baptism of the Moriscos was a sacrilege and invalid and 
so was the continued baptism of the children against the 
wish of the parents ; nor do the defenders of the work 
seem to realize the true import of the miracles which 
they triumphantly allege — that Y>^hen the Moors of Aragon 
were forcibly converted^ in 1526, an image of the Holy 
Sepulchre in the Carmelite Convent of Saragossa wept for 
twenty-four hours and the images of Our Lady of Tobet 
and some associated angels sweated profusely for thirty-six 
hours, so that a vase of this precious liquor was collected 
and preserved, of which, in 1590, Philip II. devoutly 
begged a portion. When the Moriscos were expelled in 
1610 this marvellous fluid suddenly evaporated, even that 
belonging to the king.^ 

There could, in fact, be no question as to the law and 
practice of the Churchy but to silence all discussion as to 
its applicability to the present case some pretence of con- 
sultation and investigation must be made. Charles V. 
had already resolved on his policy and had applied to 
Clement VII. to be released from his oath not to impose 
Christianity on the Moors, but the Valencian nobles were 
becoming restive under the prosecuting zeal of Inquisitor 

^ Bleda, CroDica, pp. 941, 1050. — Lanuza, Historias de Aragon, II. 
426. — Fonseca, Giusto Scacciamento, pp. 38, 269-96. — Guadalajara y 
Xavierr, Expulsion de los Moriscos, fol. 78. 

In 1579 San Luis Bertran, at the request of the Duke of Najera, 
then Viceroy of Valencia, drew up a paper on the situation in which 
he says that the original baptism was ill-done and he wished it had not 
been done, but being done it stands and the custom of the Church must 
be enforced. — Bledse Defensio Fidei, p. 457. 



74 THE GEEMANIA. 

Churruca and there must be at least a show of delibera- 
tion^ if only to gain time. Charles therefore ordered the 
Governor of Valencia to consult with the inquisitors and 
other learned theologians and jurists, who should decide 
upon the matter, but this was manifestly a body of too 
little weight for the comprehensive measures in view. 
The new Inquisitor-general, Cardinal Manrique, Arch- 
bishop of Seville, therefore addressed to the emperor, 
January 23, 1524, a letter suggesting that he should hold 
this junta, adding to it some members of the royal coun- 
cils, so that the whole subject of the Moors and Moriscos 
of the kingdom could be considered ; while if necessary 
some theologians and jurists of Valencia might partici- 
pate, in view of the opposition of the nobles and gentry 
w^ho dreaded the loss to arise from the Christianization 
of their vassals. The tone of the letter indicates that the 
matter was prejudged in advance and that any investiga- 
tion into the degree of coercion employed was only to save 
appearances.^ Charles, on February 11th, ordered the junta 
to be held at the court, but, as though to show that its de- 
liberations were superfluous, on the same day he wrote to 
Queen Germaine, the vice-queen of Valencia, ordering the 
inquisitors and vicar-general to take due action with the 
apostate Moriscos.^ Then, on February 20th, Manrique 
issued a commission to Churruca and his assessor Andres 
Palacio to make a complete investigation of all that had 
occurred in the conversion of the baptized Moors, what 
they had since done and what reasons they alleged for 
not living as Christians, together with whatever else was 

^ Archive de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 4, fol. 97. (See Appen- 
dix No. IV.) 

^ Danvila, Expulsion, p. 88. 



COMMISSION TO INVESTIGATE. 75 

necessary to throw light on the affair. There was evi- 
dently no haste desired^ for the next document is dated 
September 14th and consists of a series of interrogations on 
which the examination was to be conducted ; these neces- 
sarily limited the scope of the enquiry and were somewhat 
perfunctory in character, although special stress was laid 
on the necessity of thorough investigation into the use of 
force to bring about the conversion.^ As Churruca and 
Palacio were already committed by their action as inquis- 
itors the indecency of entrusting such an investigation to 
them is apparent, and this was increased when, October 
10th, the pro visor of Valencia, Antonio de Luna, em- 
powered Churruca to act in his place, but it was some- 
what relieved by the addition of two other commissioners, 
Martin Sanchez and Marco Juan de Bas.^ 

It was not until November 4th that the commission got 
to work at Alcira, although during October Churruca 
and Palacio were examining witnesses on their own ac- 
count. The commission labored until November 24th 
moving from place to place in the narrow territory between 
Alcira and Denia and examined 128 witnesses. The 
animus of the inquisitors was evident and though the 
prescribed formula of interrogation avoided the question 
of the regularity with which the sacrament was admin- 
istered a large portion of the evidence was devoted to 
this. The priests who officiated seem to have been care- 
fully summoned as witnesses and they expatiated at length 
on the care with which they had put the preliminary 
questions as to the desires of the converts and on the com- 
pleteness with which the rites had been performed, pass- 

^ See Appendix No. V. ^ MS. Infor macio. 



76 THE GJEBMANIA, 

ing discreetly over the absence of all enquiry as to the 
converts^ knowledge of the doctrines which they were 
presumed to be eagerly embracing. In only one instance 
moreover is there an allusion to an interpreter^ which; as 
the Moors for the most part understood only Arabic, 
would seem to have been a necessity. It was amply in 
evidence however that in the crowds which filled the 
churches there could rarely be any individualization of 
the ceremony, that holy water was scattered over them 
at random with an aspergillum or from a crock, and that 
when holy water was not to be had spring water was 
freely employed. Of course the use of chrism was im- 
possible.^ As baptism can, in cases of necessity, be the 
simplest of ceremonies and be performed even by a 
woman, such deficiencies did not invalidate it, but there 
is significance in the care with which the commission 
elicited from the clerical witnesses all possible testimony 
in favor of its due performance. 

This report was supplemented by a learned argument 
in due scholastic form by Fernando Loazes, fiscal of the 
Valencia tribunal. It is dated April 22, 1525, and 
therefore, unless previously circulated in MS., cannot 
have had any influence on the result, but it is interesting 
as showing that there was no pretence that the baptism 
of the Moors was other than coerced by violence and 
terror.^ The violence used, he admits, was a crime and 
the criminals should be punished, but the effect was good 



^ MS. Informacio. 

2 ** Cum enim ita et taliter notorium sit quod nullatenus celari potest, 
dicti regni Valentise populares . . . terroribus et raaximis minis 
et poenis dictos paganos ad baptismi suscipiendum sacramentum in- 
duxisse.'' — Loazes, Tractatus, col. 1. 



THE BAPTISM CONFIRMED. 77 

and should be preserved ; it is the way^ he piously adds, 
that God works to educe good out of evil. The Moors 
have been saved from perdition and from slavery to the 
demon and as this is a public benefit the baptisms must 
be held good, the converts must be compelled to adhere 
to the Catholic faith and those who uphold them in 
apostasy are to be prosecuted by the Inquisition as fautors 
and defenders of heresy. It is noteworthy that he wastes 
no time in defending the regularity of the baptismal rites, 
showing that that was assumed as a matter of course, and 
there is an ominous assertion that if the converts are 
allowed to relapse it will create doubt in the minds of the 
faithful as to the efficacy of baptism, while all the doctors 
agree that when there is danger of infecting the faith the 
priilce can compel uniformity or can expel the unbelievers 
from the kingdom.^ 

The report of the commission, limited and imperfect 
as it was, was duly laid before a junta of all the leading 
statesmen, lay and ecclesiastic, for the assembly consisted 
of a reunion of the councils of Castile, of Aragon, of the 
Inquisition, of Military Orders and of the Indies, to- 
gether with eminent theologians, and was presided over 

1 Ibid. col. 17, 45, 60-61, 62. 

Loazes was a man of culture ; in his dedication to Inquisitor-general 
Manrique he displays his learning by references to Homer and Virgil, 
Hesiod and Terence, Suetonius, Aulus Gellius and Valerius Maximus. 
He tells us that he was born in Orihuela, sprung from the knightly 
race of Loazes of Galicia and that he studied in Padua. He became 
inquisitor of Barcelona, where he distinguished himself by his arro- 
gant and inflexible insistance on the prerogatives of the Holy Office 
and was involved in bitter quarrels with his colleague, Juan Domin- 
guez Molon. In 1542 he was made bishop of Elna and he successively 
obtained the sees of Lerida in 1544 and Tortosa in 1553 ; in 1560 he 
became archbishop of Tarragona and in 1567 of Valencia, 



78 THE GERMANIA. 

by Cardinal Manrique. It met in the Franciscan convent 
of Madrid a ad sat for twenty-two days ; the matter was 
elaborately argued ; some of the theologians^ with Jayme 
Benet^ the most distinguished canonist of Spain, at their 
head, denied the validity of the baptisms, but no decision 
in that sense was possible and it was agreed that, as the 
Moors had made no resistance or complaint, they should 
keep the faith which they had accepted, whether they 
wished it or not. On March 23, 1525, the emperor was 
present in the junta ; Cardinal Manrique announced the 
result to him, when he confirmed it and ordered the neces- 
sary measures to be taken for its enforcement. Accord- 
ingly, on April 4th, he issued a cedula reciting the care with 
which the question had been examined and the unanimous 
conclusion reached, wherefore he declared the baptized 
Moors to be Christians, that their children must be bap- 
tized and that churches in which mass had been celebrated 
must not be used as mosques.^ 

The weighty decision was taken and the fate of the 
Spanish Moors was sealed, for all subsequent events were 
the natural consequence of the policy on which Charles 
had resolved and of which this was the first step. No 
time was lost in sending as inquisitorial commissioners 
Caspar de Avalos Bishop of Guadix, Fray Antonio de 
Guevara, the Dominican Fray Juan de Salamanca and 
Doctor Escanier royal judge of Catalonia, with a retinue 
of counsellors and familiars, constituting a most formi- 
dable tribunal. They reached Valencia May 10th and 
on Sunday the 14th the bishop preached, explained his 
commission and ordered the publication of Charleses 

^ Sandoval, Historia de Carlos V., Lib. xiii. ^ xxviii. — Sayas, 
Anales de Aragon, cap. cxxyii. — Danvila, Expulsion, pp. 90-1. 



APOSTATES TO BE PROSECUTED, 79 

c6dula and of an edict granting thirty days in which 
apostates could return with security for life and property^ 
after which they should forfeit both.^ It was easy to 
issue proclamations but not so easy to identify those who 
had undergone baptism and were living with their un- 
converted brethren. To this task the commissioners 
therefore addressed themselves^ travelling through the 
land^ investigating and making out lists and administer- 
ing confirmation to all whom they could identify.^ This 
of course was preliminary to prosecuting those who had 
returned to Moorish rites^ but they were too numerous to 
be subjected to the full hardship of the ordinary inquisi- 
torial procedure. To moderate this required papal author- 
ity which was invoked ; a brief of Clement YII. to 
Cardinal Manrique^ June 16^ 1525^ recites that Charles 
had applied to him for a remedy ; the multitude of the 
delinquents calls for gentleness and clemency wherefore 
they are to be prosecuted with a benignant asperity^ and 
those who return to the light of truth^ publicly abjure 
their errors and swear never to relapse may be absolved 
without incurring the customary disabilities and infamy.^ 
In spite of this effort to mitigate the rigor of the 
canons against heresy and apostasy^ this laborious and 
doubtless unsatisfactory investigation had a double result. 
On the one hand it served to confirm Charles and his 
advisers in the conviction that the only way to be sure 
of the baptism of a Moor was to baptize them all ; on the 

^ Sandoval, ubi sup. — Sayas, ubi sup. — Bleda, Oronica, p. 647. 

2 Fonseca, Giusto Scacciamento, p. 11. — Bleda, Cronica, p. 647 ; 
Defensio Fidei, p. 123. 

^ Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 926, fol. 47. — Bulario de 
la Orden de Santiago, Libro II. fol. 58 (Archivo Historico Nacional). 



80 THE GEBMANIA, 

other it naturally created great alarm and excitement in 
the Moorish population^ especially among the ten or fif- 
teen thousand who had passed under the hands of the 
Agermanados. They had the sympathy moreover of the 
ruling classes. Charles was moved to indignation on 
hearing that the magistrates of Valencia had asked the 
commission to act with caution and not to ill-treat the 
alfaquies because the prosperity of the kingdom depended 
on the preservation of the Moors, and when the baptized 
ones took refuge in the Sierra de Bernia the nobles not 
only would not reduce them but favored them, hoping 
that the trouble would lead the emperor to suspend 
action. Charles was inflexible, however ; he reproved 
the recalcitrant nobles, praised those who showed a dis- 
position to assist, and ordered them all to go to their 
estates and urge their vassals to become Christians, prom- 
ising them favor and good treatment. At length prepa- 
rations were made to attack the refugees of Bernia, who 
had held out from April until August ; they agreed to 
surrender on promise of immunity, and were taken to 
Murla, where they received absolution and were kindly 
treated.^ 

The Bishop of Giiadix fell sick and left the field ; the 
other commissioners grew tired of the work and were on 
the point of returning to Castile when despatches were 
received from Charles saying that as God had granted 
him the victory of Pa via he could show his gratitude in 
no better way than by compelling all the infidels of his 
realms to be baptized ; they were therefore ordered to 
remain and undertake this new conversion, in conjunction 

1 Bandoval, uhi sup. — Danvila, pp 92-3. — Say as, ubi sup. 



RIGOROUS LEGISLATION. 81 

with a new colleague^ Fray Calcena. Although Charles had 
long been preparing for this^ there may be partial truth 
in the story that he was stirred to immediate action by the 
gibes of his captive^ Francis I.^ who landed at Valencia 
June 30, 1525, and was taken to the castle of Benisano, 
where he was scandalized on seeing from a window Moors 
at work in the fields on a feast day.^ It was doubtless as 
a persuasive to conversion that in October and November 
severe restrictions were placed on all unbaptized Moors. 
They were required to wear on the cap a half -moon of 
purple cloth, they were forbidden to leave their domiciles 
under pain of being enslaved by the first comer, they 
were forbidden to sell anything, they were deprived of 
their arms and the practice of their religious rites, they 
were required to rest on feast days and to uncover and 
prostrate themselves on meeting the sacrament.^ 

The Germania had builded better than it knew. It 
had given an impulse which blind fanaticism had eagerly 
developed until the movement was spreading far beyond 
the narrow boundaries of Valencia, and the wild work 
of the lawless bands of Agermanados was to be adopted 
and systematized and perfected by the supreme powers 
in State and Church. 

^ Bledse Defensio Fidei, p. 124. 

^ Danvila, p. 92. — Say as, uhi sup. — Bledae Defensio Fidei, p. 123. 



CHAPTER IV. 

CONVERSION BY EDICT. 

Even before the question of the validity of the Valen- 
ciaii baptisms had been settled^ Charles V. had resolved 
that he would have uniformity of faith in his Spanish 
dominions. Whatever tolerant tendencies he might have 
had in the earlier years of his reign had disappeared in 
the fierce struggle with the Lutheran revolt. By the 
edict of Worms^ May 26, 1521 he had put Luther and 
his followers under the ban of the Empire ; under his 
orders the magistrates of the Low Countries were burn- 
ing reformers ; he had learned to regard dissidence of 
belief as rebellion against both the temporal and the 
spiritual power and as both a statesman and a sincere 
Catholic it was his duty to suppress it. His demands 
for religious unity in Germany were fatally weakened if 
it could be said that in Spain, where his authority was 
almost absolute, he permitted hundreds of thousands of 
his subjects openly to worship Allah and his prophet. 

His grand-dame Isabella had enforced outward con- 
formity in the kingdoms of Castile, but for those of 
Aragon there was the obstacle of the solemn oath taken 
by Ferdinand for himself and his successors, an oath 
which Charles himself had repeated when he was recog- 
nized and had received the allegiance of his Aragonese 
subjects. It was a binding compact between them but 



i 



BRIEF OF CLEMENT VIL 83 

fortunately for him the Vice-gerent of God had assumed 
the power of releasing men from their oaths^ of abrogat- 
ing compacts and of setting aside all human laws. To 
Clement VII. therefore Charles applied in the latter 
part of 1523^ or beginning of 1524, for relief from the 
obligations which worked such disservice to God, and it 
is to the credit of Clement that he refused at first, declar- 
ing that the request was scandalous.^ His resistance 
however gave way before the earnest pressure of the 
Duke of Sesa, Charleses ambassador, and on May 12, 
1524, the fateful brief was issued. 

It recites the papal grief at learning that in Valencia, 
Catalonia and Aragon Charles has many subjects who are 
Moors and with whom the faithful cannot hold inter- 
course without danger ; they even live with the temporal 
lords who make no effort for their conversion, all of 
which is a scandal to the faith and a dishonor to the 
emperor, besides which they serve as spies for those of 
Africa to whom they reveal the designs of the Christians. 
It therefore exhorts Charles to order the inquisitors to 
preach the word of God to them and if they persist in 
their obstinacy the inquisitors shall designate a term and 
warn them that on its expiration they shall be exiled 
under pain of perpetual slavery, which shall be rigorously 
executed. The tithes of their temporal possessions, which 
they have never hitherto paid, shall accrue to their lords 
in recompense for the damage caused to them by the 
expulsion, under condition that the lords shall provide 
the churches with what is necessary for divine service, 
while the revenues of the mosques shall be converted into 

^ Llorente, Anales, II. 287. 



84 CON VERSION B Y EDICT. 

benefices. The portentous document concludes with a 
formal release to Charles from the oath sworn to the 
cortes not to expel the Moors ; it absolves him from all 
censures and penalties of perjury thence arising and grants 
him whatever dispensation is necessary for the execution 
of the premises. Moreover it confers on the inquisitors 
ample faculties to suppress all opposition with censures 
and other remedies, invoking if necessary the aid of the 
secular arm, notwithstanding all apostolical constitutions 
and the privileges and statutes of the land.^ 

If Clement had hesitated at first in thus authorizing 
this breach of faith he had gotten bravely over his 
scruples ; there is no word in the brief signifying that 
it had been asked of him ; he took the responsibility of 
the initiative and Spanish writers were justified in assign- 
ing to him the credit of having suggested the action and 
induced Charles to adopt it. The whole matter was 
treated as belonging exclusively to ecclesiastical jurisdic- 
tion and its execution was committed wholly to the In- 
quisition as the most appropriate and efficient instrument. 

For eighteen months Charles held the papal brief with- 
out publishing it, but it untied his hands. Apparently 

^ Archive de Simancas, Libro 927, fol. 285. — Bledse Defensio Fidei, 
pp. 463-66. — Sayas, Aiiales, cap. ex. 

March 20th Charles had instructed the Duke of Sesa to ask Clement 
not to entertain any appeals from the Moriscos but to refer them all 
to the inquisitor-general (Llorente, Aiiales, II. 293). It is not likely 
that the pope gave any written assurance to this effect, as the question 
of appeals from the Inquisition was a burning one and was at this 
moment the subject of a specially vigorous controversy. It is worth 
noting however that while the documents up to the close of the cen- 
tury show frequent endeavors by Judaizing heretics to escape by 
recourse to Eome I do not remember to have met with a single in- 
stance of the kind on the part of a Morisco. 



i 



CONVERSION ENACTED. 85 

he waited until the weighty question of the validity of 
the baptisms was settled and then the disturbances in 
Valencia counselled further delay before taking decisive 
action. On being satisfied as to this early in September^ 
1525^ he addressed^ on the 13th^ letters to the nobles in- 
forming them of his irrevocable determination not to 
allow a Moor or other infidel to remain in his dominions 
except as a slave ; he recognized that expulsion would 
affect their revenues and leave their lands depopulated^ 
wherefore he earnestly desired to avoid it and conse- 
quently urged them to go to their estates and co-operate 
with the inquisitorial commissioners in procuring the con- 
version and instruction of their vassals. A brief letter 
of the same date to the Moors informs them of the deter- 
mination to which he has been inspired by Almighty God 
that His law shall prevail throughout the land^ and of 
his desire for their salvation and release from error, 
wherefore he exhorts and commands them to submit to 
baptism ; if they do so, they shall have the liberties of 
Christians and good treatment ; if they refuse he will 
provide for it by other means. This was followed the 
next day by an edict for proclamation everywhere ; it 
was addressed to the Moors telling them of his resolve 
that no one of another faith should remain except in 
slavery ; as he desires their salvation and protection from 
all ill-treatment he gives them this notice before execut- 
ing his intention ; he guarantees them all the privileges 
of Christians and, under a penalty of 5000 florins and the 
royal wrath, every one is ordered not to impede the con- 
version and to respect all converts. A letter of the same 
date to Queen Germaine is worth noting as the first of a 
long series which reveals the absurdity of the attempt to 



86 CONVERSION BY EDICT, 

deprive the Moors of their religion without providing a 
substitute. He is told^ he says^ that in many of the vil- 
lages of the new converts there are no priests to instruct 
them or to celebrate mass^ and he orders her to see that 
the converts are instructed and ministered to^ but in lands 
subject to the royal jurisdiction care must be taken to 
reserve to the crown the patronage of the new churches.^ 
It remained thus to the end ; there were always eager 
hands stretched out to seize the revenues of the mosques 
and the tithes^ but few to train the new converts in the 
faith which they were compelled to profess. 

Guevara and his colleagues^ armed wdth full power as 
inquisitors^ set to work^ announcing to the Moors the 
unchangeable will of the Emperor^ with a term of grace 
of eight days^ after which they would proceed to execute 
his decrees. The frightened aljamas met and deputed 
twelve alfaquies to supplicate Charles for clemency and 
the revocation of the edict. Queen Germaine gave them 
a safe-conduct and they were solemnly received at court, 
whither, it is said, they carried 50,000 ducats wherewith 
to influence persons of importance. For the moment 
they could accomplish nothing although subsequently 
they obtained, nominally at least, some mitigation of 
rigor.^ 

At length Charles concluded that the time had come to 
show his hand. On November 3d he enclosed the papal 
brief in a letter addressed to the inquisitor-general and 
all inquisitors and ordered them to put it into execution 
as speedily as possible. Under the same date he ad- 

^ Danvila, pp. 94-8. — Fernandez y Gonzalez, p. 443. — Say as, Anales, 
cap. cxxvii, 
^ Say as, loc. cit, — Danvila, pp. 97-8. 



EXPULSION OE CONVERSION, 87 

dressed the authorities, secular and ecclesiastical, of 
Valencia (and presumably of the other kingdoms) in- 
forming them of the brief and that it derogated all the 
fueros, privileges and constitutions of the kingdom to 
which he had sworn. He stated that he had instructed 
the Inquisition to execute the papal command, and he 
ordered the local authorities, under pain of 10,000 florins, 
to enforce whatever the inquisitors might decree.^ Hav- 
ing thus paved the way, on November 25th he issued a 
general edict of expulsion. All the Moors of Valencia 
were to be out of Spain by December 31, 1525, and 
those of Aragon and Catalonia by January 31, 1526. 
Following Isabella's example, there was no exemption 
promised for conversion but the difficulties thrown in the 
way of the exiles showed, as in 1502, the real object in 
view. The Valencians were ordered to register and 
obtain passports at Sieteaguas, on the frontier of Cuenca, 
and thence take their weary way through Requena, Utiel, 
Madrid, Valladolid, Benavente and Villaf ranca to Coruiia 
where they were to embark for strange lands under pain 
of slavery and confiscation. The nobles were warned 
not to retain or harbor Moors under penalty of 5000 
ducats for each one and other penalties. At the same 
time was published a papal brief ordering, under pain of 
major excommunication, all Christians to aid in enforcing 
the imperial decrees and that the Moors must listen 
without replying to the teaching of the Gospel. Another 
edict commanding that all Moors should be baptized by 
December 8th or be prepared to leave the kingdom showed 
by implication that exile might be averted by baptism, 

^ Archive de Simancas, Libro 927, fol. 285. 



88 CONVERSION BY EDICT. 

Then the Inquisition gave notice that it was prepared for 
action ; tremendous censures were published against those 
who failed to denounce transgressors^ together with a 
penalty of a thousand florins on all who^ when called 
upon^ should fail to aid it against those who obstinately 
resisted the sweetness of the gospel and the benignant 
plans of the emperor. Some of these obstinate ones^ in 
fact, in Aragon and Catalonia, managed to make their 
way to France and thence to Barbary.^ 

In Aragon, even before the issue of the edict, the 
anticipation of what was to come had caused a lively 
agitation among the Moors. They ceased to labor in 
their fields and shops causing the greatest anxiety to the 
Christian population. The Diputados, or standing com- 
mittee of the cortes, were summoned to save the pros- 
perity of the land ; they called into counsel prominent 
representatives of the interests concerned and resolved 
to send envoys to remonstrate with Charles. One of 
their number, the Count of Ribagorza, a great noble of 
royal blood, chanced to be at the court, and to him they 
sent a detailed instruction for immediate action. This 
appealed to the solemn oath taken by Ferdinand and 
repeated by Charles ; it represented that the whole in- 
dustry and prosperity of the land rested upon the Moors, 
whose labors raised the harvests and produced the manu- 
factures, while on their censales depended the income of 
churches and convents, of benefices and the gentry, of 



^ Say as, Aiiales, cap. cxxvii. — Llorente, Anales, II. 296. — Danvila 
p. 99 

The Diario Turolense says that the Moors of Aragon were ordered to 
depart by the port of Coruna and those of Valencia by the way of 
Fuentarabia. — Boletin de la E. Acad, de Historia, XXVII. 56. 



REMONSTRANCE OF ARAGON. 89 

widows and orphans.^ They were practically the slaves 
of the gentry and nobles^ to whom they were obedient 
and peaceable, and they had never been known to per- 
vert a Christian or cause scandal to the faith ; they lived 
at a distance from the coast, so that they could hold no 
communication with Barbary and by the law they were 
enslaved if they attempted to leave the kingdom. Their 
expulsion would mean ruin, while if converted they would 
be enfranchised and enabled to go abroad, weakening 
Spain and strengthening its enemies. As they had ceased 
to sow their lands, immediate action by the king reliev- 
ing their fears was necessary to avert a famine. The 
influence of Ribagorza procured a brief delay in the issue 
of the edict, but Charles was inflexible, and his practical 
reply was a proclamation, published in Saragossa, Decem- 
ber 2 2d, forbidding any Moor from leaving Aragon and 
ordering absentees to return within a month, prohibiting 
any communication between those of the nobles and those 
living on realengos or lands under royal jurisdiction, 
ordering that no one should purchase property of them, 
closing their mosques and depriving them of their public 
shambles.^ 

This naturally increased the agitation and risings oc- 



^ The censo or censed was a debt or obligation, bearing interest usually 
at the rate of five or six per cent., and charged upon an individual or 
community or land — in the latter case like the modern ground-rent. It 
formed at the period almost the only investment available for capital 
and was particularly a favorite with the ecclesiastical foundations. The 
Moors were large borrowers and their recognized mercantile integrity 
rendered their censos peculiarly desirable. We shall see hereafter the 
frightful confusion arising from this at the final expulsion. 

2 Say as, Aiiales, cap. cxxx. — Dormer, Anales de Aragon, Lib. ii. 
cap. 1. 



90 CONVERSION B Y EDICT, 

curred. The Moors of Almonacir^ indeed^ had not waited 
for these developments but in October had closed their 
gates against some preachers sent for their conversion and 
they held out until January when the town was taken by 
assault^ the leaders were executed and the rest submitted 
to baptism. After the publication of the edict other places 
rose ; they fortified themselves in the Castillo de Maria^ 
near Saragossa^ placing their hopes in succor from Africa 
and in the promised resurrection of the Moor Alfatimi 
on his green horse^ but as these expectations died away 
they seem to have recognized their hopeless position and 
to have submitted. No little trouble^ however^ was caused 
by Christians who seized and enslaved many Moors on 
the pretext that they were preparing to take to the moun- 
tainS; causing great scandal and angering the lords who 
were seeking to keep their populations of vassals intact. 
Restlessness continued and the repugnance to baptism was 
hard to overcome ; hopes were entertained when an alfaqui 
of Quarto^ said to be more than a hundred years old and 
of great authority among them, was converted, but only 
a few followed his example. The date of expulsion was 
postponed until March 15th and as it approached there 
were risings in the lands of the lords of Luna and the 
Count of Aranda, but the insurgents were suppressed and 
disarmed, and finally the Moorish population as a whole 
submitted to baptism.^ 

The problem was a still more troublesome one in Valen- 
cia, where the Moors were more numerous, were nearer 
the coast and in more constant communication with Bar- 
bary, and where the great nobles had more at stake in 

^ Sandoval, Lib. xiii. g xxviii. — Dormer, Lib. ii. cap. 1. 



RESISTANCE IN VALENCIA, 91 

protecting their vassals. When the alfaquies returned 
from their fruitless mission to the court the great bulk of 
the Moors submitted and outwardly accepted baptism. 
Antonio de Guevara, who was foremost in the work, 
boasts that in Valencia he baptized 27,000 families of 
Moors, but the Moriscos subsequently related that this 
wholesale administration of the sacrament was accom- 
plished by corralling them in pens and scattering water 
over them, when some would endeavor to hide themselves 
and others would shout ^^no water has touched me.^^ 
They submitted to it, they said, because their alfaquies 
assured them that deceit was permissible and that they 
need not believe the religion which they were compelled 
to profess.^ Many also eluded it by hiding themselves 
but the first open resistance was at Benaguacil, in which 
the Moors of the neighboring villages took refuge and 
closed the gates, whereupon Don Luis Ferrer, lieutenant 
of the governor, ravaged their lands with a hundred 
troopers. This failed to overcome their obstinacy, when 
the great standard of Valencia was raised and the gov- 
ernor, Don Valencio Cabanillas, marched with two thou- 
sand men and proclaimed war with fire and sword — 
guerra a fuego y a sangre — the pitiless and unsparing 
warfare which so often meets us in the history of these 
deplorable conflicts. Even with the aid of artillery and 
reinforcements, swelling the army to 5000 men, it took 
the besiegers five weeks to force a capitulation, March 

^ Guevara, Epistolas familiares, p. 543. — Archive de Simancas, In- 
quisicion de Valencia, Legajo 205, fol. 3. 

Bleda (Defensio Fidei, p. 125) says that Guevara's boast is an exag- 
geration, for in 1573 there were but 19,801 families of Moriscos in Valen- 
cia, and in 1602 they had increased only to about 30,000. 



92 CONVERSION B Y EDICT. 

27th, with promise of quarter, letters of pardon having 
been sent by Charles through Guevara who entered with 
the governor. The Moors, except some who escaped to 
the Sierra de Espadan, were duly baptized and the penalty 
of slavery and confiscation was commuted to a fine of 
12,000 ducats, except in the case of some Aragonese 
Moors who had come to the assistance of the besieged.^ 
A further significant incident was that of the lord of 
Cortea who was residing at Eequena. Moved by pious 
zeal he started for Cortea with seventeen valiant hidalgos 
to baptize his Moors, but they were beforehand with him, 
for they ambushed him at night and slew the whole 
party.^ 

More serious was the rebellion which had its strong- 
hold in the Sierra de Espadan, consisting mainly of the 
vassals of Alonso de Aragon, Duke of Segorbe. Of all 
the great nobles he had been the most recalcitrant to the 
measures of the emperor, which had probably strength- 
ened the spirit of resistance in that district, where his 
estates were enormous. The refugees were joined by 
others, even from as far as Aragon, who came with their 
families and property. They organized for a desperate 
resistance, electing as king a Moor named Carban who 
took the name of Selim Almanzo, they built huts and 
entrenched themselves in the fastnesses of the mountains, 
from which they made forays upon the adjoining valleys, 
laying in stores of provisions and we are told that they 
had the sympathy of the people, who willingly suffered 
privation for the benefit of those who were defending the 
cause of Mahomet. Queen Germaine raised a force of 

1 Dormer, he. cit. ^ Sandoval, loc. cit — Diario Turolense, loc. ciL 



RESISTANCE IN VALENCIA. 93 

3000 men and sent them to the Duke of Segorbe^ but 
he was repulsed with considerable loss and his army^ dis- 
couraged and accusing him of being half-hearted in the 
business, melted away until he had only a thousand men 
left. With these he garrisoned Onda^ but could not pre- 
vent the Moorish forays^ in one of which the village of 
Chilches was captured and some consecrated hosts were 
carried off. Immediate use of this was made to inflame 
the people ; all the altars in the province Avere draped 
with mournings only the wickets in the church-doors were 
opened^ all services were performed without display and 
the procession of Corpus Christi (May 31st) was post- 
poned. Enthusiasm was thus aroused ; the great standard 
of Valencia was unfurled and a second army was raised 
which set forth July 11th. As it neared Onda it was 
met by the Moors in vigorous sallies^ in which booty to 
the amount of more than 30,000 ducats was obtained, 
which explains the large accessions of volunteers who 
came to join the troops. After reaching Onda, July 19th, 
there was desperate fighting in which the Moors were 
gradually driven back to the sierra from the lowlands 
which they had occupied^ an important advantage as it 
checked the tendency to rise which was spreading and 
only awaiting a prospect of favorable success. The duke 
summoned the Moors to surrender within three days 
under pain of slavery for all prisoners, but they rejected 
his proposals and as he deemed his forces insufficient for 
an assault on the mountain he called for reinforcements. 
Many came from Aragon and Catalonia, while the papal 
legate Salviati, happening to pass through Valencia, issued 
a plenary indulgence a culpa et a poena to all who should 
serve, thus converting the campaign into a crusade. It 



94 CONVERSION B Y EDICT. 

made little difference that he had no power to do this ; the 
offer was tempting to sinners and brought large accessions 
to the army. There was another difficulty to be over- 
come, for Charles was as usual impecunious and furnished 
no money for the payment of the troops, but the clergy 
and the nobles and the city of Valencia were appealed to 
and raised sufficient funds to keep the men in the field. 
All this time the Moors were defending themselves obsti- 
nately and even making sallies into the lowlands ; the 
duke sought to obtain reinforcements from Aragon and 
finally appealed to the emperor who recalled from Barce- 
lona a detachment of 3000 German veterans about to em- 
bark for Italy and placed them under the duke^s orders. 
This swelled his force to 7000 men, besides, as we are 
told, great numbers of adventurers — a feature common 
enough in these campaigns — partly men attracted by honor, 
but mostly those whose object was plunder and speculators 
who came in the hope of bargains in slaves or other 
miscellaneous articles which the soldiers might wish to 
dispose of on the spot. The war was now nearing its 
end; on September 18th the troops carried a ridge and 
on the 19th a general assault was made from four sides ; 
the Moors defended themselves as best they could with 
slings and bows, killing seventy-two of the assailants, of 
whom thirty-three were Germans. The Spaniards, we 
are told, only slew the old men and the women, reserving 
the rest for slaves ; the Germans, in revenge for their 
thirty-three comrades massacred all, in number about 
5000. Great booty was obtained ; what was sold on the 
spot fetched more than 200,000 ducats, while the adven- 
turers and the Aragonese, Catalans and Germans carried 
off much more. The Moors who escaped took refuge in 



SUBMISSION TO BAPTISM. 95 

the fastnesses of the Muela de Cortes, but they were soon 
hard-pressed and surrendered at discretion, when three 
of their leaders were strangled, the rest were deprived 
of their arms, their books were burnt and they were com- 
pelled to submit to the Gospel. There were other rebels 
who found refuge in the Sierra de Bernia and in Guada- 
leste and Confridas, but they mostly succeeded in escaping 
to Africa. Thus was Valencia Christianized and pacified ; 
the Moriscos, as we may now call them, were disarmed, 
the pulpits used by their alfaquies were torn down, their 
Korans were burnt and orders were given to instruct 
them completely in the faith — orders, as we shall see, 
perpetually repeated and never executed.^ 

The whole Morisco population was now at the mercy 
of the Inquisition. Considering the circumstances of the 
conversion, the ignorance of the neophytes and their noto- 
rious attachment to their ancestral faith every considera- 
tion both of policy and charity dictated a tolerant spirit 
until they could be instructed and won over, and the 
Suprema recognized this by ordering that they should be 
treated with great moderation.^ As usual, however, the 
tribunal of Valencia was a law unto itself and its records 
show that, with the exception of the years 1525 and 1527, 
when it stayed its hands and had no trials or burnings for 
heresy, it continued its operations with rather more activity 
than before.^ In fact, it seemed impossible for the Moris- 

^ Sandoval, Lib. xiii. | xxix. — Dormer, Lib. ii. cap. viii., ix. — 
Bleda, Cronica, p. 649. — The cortes of 1528 granted amnesty to the 
insurgents. — Danvila, Expulsion, p. 101. 

^ Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 939, fol. 108. 

3 The trials for heresy in 1524 were 40, in 1526, 47, in 1528, 42, in 1529, 
44, in 1530, 20.— Archivo Hist. Nacional, Inq^ de Valencia, Legajo 98. 

The burnings in person, adding as before 25 per cent, for the imper- 



96 CONVERSION BY EDICT, 

cos to be treated with fairness. The twelve alf aquies whom 
we have seen sent to the court in 1525^ with 50,000 ducats 
to avert the edict of expulsion had succeeded in obtaining 
important concessions in a concordia of January 6, 1526, 
in which it was agreed, with the assent of Cardinal Man- 
rique, that on submitting to baptism, as they could not at 
once divest themselves of their customs and habits, they 
should not, for forty years, be subject to prosecution by 
the Inquisition, a grace of that kind having been granted 
to Granada at the time of its conversion. This however 
was kept secret until 1528, when it was sent to the bayle 
general of Valencia, who published it May 21st in accord- 
ance with orders from Charles, but was reproved for so 
doing by Cardinal Manrique. That year the cortes of 
the three states of Aragon met at Monzon and petitioned 
Charles to prevent the Inquisition from proceeding against 
the new converts until they should be instructed in the 
faith, to which he replied that he had already granted to 
Valencia the exemption formerly allowed to Granada 
and he now extended it to Aragon. The Inquisition, 
however, was already an imperium in imperio, which held 
itself above all human laws, and when the Aragonese 
nobles in 1529 presented a series of remonstrances about 
the treatment of the new converts to the emperor and 
another nearly identical to Cardinal Manrique the latter 
replied evasively June 2d, that it was not their injury but 
their salvation that was desired and that he hopes God 
may lay his hand on them, so that all may eventuate 
well. Charles had laid his hands on them by a decree of 
December 5, 1528 in which he ordered all the Moors of 

fection of the record, may be stated as 16 in 1524, 19 in 1526, 29 in 
1528, 30 in 1529 and 1 in 1530.— Ibid. Legajo 300. 



CONCORDIA DISREGARDED. 97 

Aragon and Catalonia to have themselves baptized within 
four years. ^ 

In fact the Inquisition construed the concordia to suit 
itself and in a few months after its promulgation the Su- 
prema declared that it did not condone the use of Moorish 
rites and ceremonies and that those who performed them 
or relapsed from the faith were to be considered as apostates 
and to be duly prosecuted^ to all of which the emperor 
acceded.^ We have just seen that the activity of the In- 
quisition of Valencia continued through 1529 and was 
slightly diminished in 1530. In Aragon it mitigated its 
severity somewhat^ for early in the latter year it reported to 
the Suprema that a number of Moriscos had been reconciled 
in the preceding auto de f e^ for whom confiscation and per- 
petual prison were commuted to fines and in some cases to 
scourging ; that the fines had been applied to a cleric who 
should instruct the penitents and teach their children to 
read^ but that the receiver of confiscations had refused to 
disburse the money.^ In Valencia it signalized the year 

^ Danvila, Expulsion, pp. 102, 105, 108. — Dormer, Lib. 11. cap. 1. — 
Llorente, Anales, II. 341. — Arcliivo de Simancas, Inqn, Libre 76, fol. 
183. 

Danvila states {he. cit.) that at the close of 1529 Charles ordered 
the expulsion of all the Moriscos of Valencia, probably moved by the 
discovery of a plot, the leader of which was executed. If such expul- 
sion was ordered it must have been promptly countermanded, as there 
seems to be no other trace of it. 

^ Danvila, loc. cit. 

^ Arch, de Simancas, vhi sup. fol. 312. 

The Suprema replied. May 7, 1530, that the receiver was responsible 
for the collection of the fines, but, to remove suspicion that they are 
for the benefit of the Inquisition, it would be well to appoint proper 
persons in the Morisco villages to collect the fines and with them pay 
the salaries of instructors. 

7 



98 CONVEESION B Y EDICT, 

1531 with 58 trials for heresy and about 45 burnings in per- 
son.^ This was perhaps the moderation and benignity on 
which Cardinal Manrique dwelt in reply about this time to 
an indignant complaint of the cortes of the three kingdoms 
that the Moors had not been taught and had no churches 
provided for them and yet were prosecuted for heresy.^ 
On the other hand Clement VII. grew impatient at the 
slow progress of the work and issued a brief, June 11, 1533, 
to Manrique, which Charles by a decree of January 13, 
1534, ordered him to execute. In this he asserted that the 
Moors of Valencia, Aragon and Catalonia held relations 
with those of Africa, they converted many Christians to 
their faith and introduced many superstitions among the 
simple people, to the great danger of the Christian relig- 
ion ; he had exhorted the emperor as to all this in his 
brief of May 12, 1524, and repeatedly since then, and he 
now orders Manrique at once to depute persons of learn- 
ing to instruct the Moors and that if they do not embrace 
Christianity within a term to be fixed, he must expel them 
from the kingdom or reduce them all to slavery without 
mercy.^ 

^ Arch. Hist. Nacional, Inq^ de Valencia, Legajos 98, 300. 
The figures for the next few years are — 

Trials. Burnings. Trials. Burnings. 

1532 1 none 1537 69 1 

1533 61 10 1538 112 14 

1534 25 none 1539 79 5 

1535 2 none 1540 53 5 

1536 39 15 

"^ Archivo de Simancas, Patronato Keal, Legajo unico, fol. 38. (See 
Appendix No. VI. ) 

^ Guadalajara j Xavierr, fol. 48. — Dormer, Lib. ii. cap. Ixx. — Dan- 
vila, p. 116. 



INQ UISITION HALTED, 99 

Thus stimulated the Inquisition increased its activity. 
The figures on the preceding page show what it was doing 
in Valencia^ although this may perhaps be partly explained 
by orders to the tribunal to punish with the utmost rigor 
those detected in fasting for the success of Barbarossa in 
his resistance to the Tunis expedition of Charles V.^ In 
a list of the heretics relaxed or reconciled in Majorca, the 
first appearance of Moriscos is in 1535, when five were 
burnt in person and four in effigy.^ They did not always 
submit without resistance. In 1538, when Gaspar de 
Alfrex, a fugitive, was being conveyed from Saragossa to 
the Inquisition of Valencia, the party was set upon near 
Nules, two of the officials were killed and the rescued and 
rescuers escaped to Africa.^ 

With 1540 the operations of the Valencia Inquisition 
came to a temporary stop and in the three years, 1541, 
1542, 1543, there Vr^as not a single prosecution for heresy.^ 
The nobles had complained earnestly of the disquiet caused 
among their vassals by its operations and the cortes peti- 
tioned that thirty or forty years might be given for their 
instruction, during which they should be exempt from 
prosecution. The emperor assembled a junta of prelates 
and clerics who counselled various plans of moderation 
and conciliation among which he selected that of grant- 
ing a term of grace for former offences during which 
they could be confessed sacramentally to confessors and 
that a period should be named for their instruction dur- 
ing which the Inquisition should not prosecute them. 

^ Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 78, fol. 34, 152. 

^ Ibid. Libro 595. After this, however, they occur but sparingly. 

^ Danvila, p. 124. 

^ Archivo Hist. Nacional, Inqii de Valencia, Legajo 98. 

LofC. 



100 CONVERSION B Y EDICT. 

This period was liberally fixed at twenty-six years, with 
the warning that it would be shortened or extended 
according as they should abuse or use it. The result 
was not satisfactory ; they commenced to live openly as 
Moors, circumcising their boys, fasting the Ramadan, 
working on feast-days, abstaining from mass and saying 
that as they had thirty years in which to live as they 
pleased they would take full advantage of it.^ This 
well-meant effort to employ persuasion came to a speedy 
end. The Inquisition resumed operations with renewed 
vigor and in 1544 it had 79 cases, in 1545, 37 and in 
1546, 49.2 

In 1547 there was a reversion to a milder policy. In 
the endeavor to frame and conduct an organization for 
the instruction of the Moriscos, of which more hereafter, 
two '' apostolic commissioners,^^ Fray Antonio de Calcena, 
afterwards Bishop of Tortosa, and Antonio Ramirez de 
Haro, afterwards Bishop of Segovia, had been sent to 
Valencia. They had the faculties of inquisitors and bore 
that title, to give them greater authority, but they were 
instructed not to act as such or to interfere with the 
operations of the tribunal.^ In 1540, Haro^s commission 
was renewed under the same conditions. Then a brief 
was obtained from Paul III., August 2, 1546, which com- 
pletely superseded the Inquisition, as it granted faculties 
to appoint confessors empowered to hear confessions of 
the Moriscos and absolve them in utroque foro — both 
sacramentally and judicially — even if they had been 

1 Dan Vila, p. 130. 

^ Arch. Hist. Nac, InqQ de Valencia, Leg. 98. 
^ Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 4, fol. 110 ; Lib. 77, fol. 
353 ; Lib. 78, fol. 275. 



INQ UISITION SUSPENDED. IQl 

tried and condemned by the Inquisition, and to prescribe 
for them either public or private abjuration on their pro- 
fessing contrition and swearing in future to abstain from 
heresy. They and their descendants were relieved from 
all disabilities and from confiscation and Old Christians 
could consort and trade with them freely/ This was a 
most liberal measure, although St. Tomas de Vilanova, 
Archbishop of Valencia, says that it was ineffective be- 
cause it required the penitent to abjure de vehementi — for 
vehement suspicion of heresy — which none of them would 
do, wherefore he suggested that more extensive faculties 
should be obtained to absolve and pardon without observ- 
ing legal forms, considering that these people were con- 
verted as it were by force, that they never have been 
instructed and that their intercourse with the Algerine 
Moors renders them averse to Christianity.^ 

It made little difference what were the powers conferred 
on the Bishop of Segovia, as the only effect of his com- 
mission was to render the Inquisition powerless and super- 
sede also the episcopal jurisdiction. He left Valencia 
early in 1547 and never returned. April 12th the arch- 
bishop wrote to Prince Philip that since he had gone the 
Moriscos become daily bolder in performing their Moorish 
ceremonies as there is no one to restrain or punish them. 
The bishop had left no one to represent him and some 
one should speedily be sent with powers subdelegated by 
him. A promise was made that a person should shortly 
be sent, but the customary habit of procrastination pre- 

^ Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Libro in. fol. 33 (Archive His- 
torico Xacional). 

^ Coleccion de Docum. ined. T. V. p. 104. Abjuration de vehementi — 
for vehement suspicion of heresy — irrevocably entailed burning in case 
of relapse. 



102 CONVERSION BY EDICT, 

vailed. On November 10th the archbishop wrote again 
representing the complete liberty enjoyed by the con- 
versos with no one to look after them^ bnt no attention 
was paid to him^ and^ in 1551 and 1552, we find him still 
calling for some one empowered to keep the Moriscos in 
order ; if no one can be sent they should be subjected to 
the Inquisition as formerly, or a papal faculty should be 
obtained enabling the episcopal ordinary to punish them 
moderately. Even when, in 1551, the Bishop of Segovia 
appointed the Inquisitor Gregorio de Miranda as commis- 
sioner for the Moriscos he granted him no inquisitorial 
power and the Moriscos of Valencia remained free from 
persecution for ten years longer.^ This explains why 
the records of the Inquisition show only twelve cases in 
1547, fifteen in 1548, four in 1549 and then an entire 
cessation of trials up to and including 1562, except two 
in 1558 and fifteen in 1560.^ In 1561 the Inquisitor- 
general Valdes was empowered by Paul IV. to enable 
the Archbishop of Valencia and his Ordinary to recon- 
cile secretly relapsed New Christians ; in those cases 
which could be judicially proved, the confessions were 
to be made before a notary and delivered to the Inquisi- 
tion, while in those which could not be proved the pen- 
ances were to be purely spiritual.^ This indicates that 

1 Coleccion de Docum. ined. T. V. pp. 100, 101, 107, 108, 122. 

^ Archive Hist. Nacional, Inqn de Valencia, Legajo 98. The cases 
in 1547, 1548 and 1549 may be unfinished business of previous years or 
heretics other than Moriscos, and the latter supposition may explain 
those of 1558 and 1560. So far as heresy was concerned however the 
business of the Valencia tribunal was almost exclusively with Moriscos. 

^ Archivo de Simancas, Libro 4, fol. 262. (See Appendix No. VII. ) 
The futility of these apparent concessions arose from the insistence upon 
confessions being taken down by notaries and becoming matters of record 
not only against the penitent himself but against all his accomplices. 



A TTEMPT A T CONCILIA TION. 1 03 

attention at last was being given to the anomalous condi- 
tion existing. In 1562^ accordingly^ the Inquisition of 
Valencia commenced to act in Teruel^ where the town of 
Xea had the reputation of being an asylum of malefac- 
tors ; it was exclusively Morisco and no Christian was 
allowed to reside there.^ Finally all restrictions were 
removed and^ in 1563^ the Inquisition was vigorously at 
work with sixty-two cases. It held two autos de fe in 
that year in which appeared nine culprits from Xea.^ 

In 1564^ after the customary discussion by a junta, 
Philip II. essayed a tolerably comprehensive plan of 
conciliation in which the Inquisition was instructed to 
use its powers with the utmost moderation, except in the 
case of alfaquies, dogmatizers (those who taught and 
preached heresy), midw^ives (who were asserted to shield 
infants from baptism and to circumcise the males) and 
those who profane the sacraments, all of w^hom were to 
be prosecuted witlT the utmost rigor. The instructions 
issued in pursuance of this by the Stiprema to the In- 
quisition of Valencia, while not directly contravening it, 
allowed a latitude of which the tribunal could avail itself 
to frustrate the project of conciliation, and its activity 
during the following years would seem to show that it 
felt itself under no restrictions.^ 

^ Danvila, p. 164. Teruel and Albarracin, althougli a province of 
Aragon were under the jurisdiction of the Inquisition of Valencia. 

^ Archivo Hist. Nacional, Inq^^ de Valencia, Leg. 98. — Danvila, p. 167. 

^ Archivo Hist. Nacional, Inq^ de Valencia, Leg. 2, MS. 16, fol. 
187 ; Leg. 98. The number of cases in Valencia were — 

1564 38 1566 41 1568 68 

1565 66 1567 54 1569 none 
That the instructions with regard to the alfaquies were observed 

would appear from the fact that in 1568 there were nine of them pen- 
anced. — Danvila, p. 178. 



104 CONVERSION B Y EDICT, 

During this period the Inquisition by no means neg- 
lected the converted Mudejares of Castile. I have the 
records of a number of trials between 1540 and 1550 of 
Moriscos of Daimiel^ a town within the district of the 
Inquisition of Toledo^, which represent what was going 
on with more or less frequency throughout the land. 
The Moors of Daimiel had been baptized in 1502 under 
the edict of Isabella — Mayor Garcia testified^ in 1550^ 
that she was 55 or 56 years old and that she was bap- 
tized in the general conversion of the Moors of Daimiel 
when she was 7 or 8 years old.^ Apparently they had 
been overlooked by the Inquisition until Juan Yanes^ 
Inquisitor of Toledo and subsequently Bishop of Cala- 
horra, came there in his visitation of 1538 and Catalina, 
wife of Pedro de Banos spontaneously testified that some 
thirteen years before she had lived with the Moriscos for 
about twelve years and saw that they did not eat pork or 
drink wine on the plea that these things did not agree 
with them. Long immunity had rendered them some- 
what careless as to Catholic observances ; Yanes says 
that^ prior to his visitation of 1538^ they never went to 
mass^ but they had learned enough of the externals of 
religion to maintain an outward appearance of orthodoxy 
— indeed it was believed among them that a decree of the 
emperor and inquisitor-general had exempted them from 
the jurisdiction of the Inquisition^ and that this exemp- 
tion had been purchased by a general assessment laid 
upon those of Daimiel or of the province of Calatrava. 
Possibly some knavish official may have speculated upon 
them, for Mari Gomez, when on trial, said that formerly 

^ Proceso de Mayor Garcia, fol. iv. (MS. 'penes me). 



INQ UISITION IN CASTILE, 1 05 

there had been a penalty nnposed on those who avoided 
pork and wine^ bnt that this had ceased to be collected 
and they had all given np consuming those articles.^ 
Yaiies returned to Daimiel^ in 1543, and gathered further 
abundant testimony and the trials dragged on for a con- 
siderable period. The number of the accused was 
large, for a single damosa, or denunciation by the 
fiscal, includes the names of ten defendants, although in 
general practice a separate clamosa is required for each 
one, and the number of prisoners must have exceeded the 
capacity of the oarceles secretas for, in 1541, we happen to 
hear of nine women confined in one cell and further that 
the great hall of the Inquisition was being used as a 
prison.^ Vigorous as were these raids they did not root 
out apostasy in Daimiel, for in 1597 we find the Inqui- 
sition of Toledo busy with sundry delinquents from there.^ 
A series of reports, nearly complete, of the Inquisition 
of Toledo to the Suprema, from 1575 to 1610, affords us 
an insight into the relations of the Holy Office with the 
Moriscos, its influence on their daily lives and its inevit- 
able result of perpetuating and intensifying their hatred 
of the religion of which it was the exponent. We find 
in it 190 cases of Moriscos as against 174 of Judaizers 
and 47 of Protestants, showing that, in so far as heresy 
was concerned, the Moriscos afforded the largest amount 
of business for the tribunal. In these thirty-five years 
there were only eleven Moriscos relaxed — the euphemistic 
synonym for burning — being those who either persistently 

^ Proceso de Mari Naranja, fol. 2 ; Proceso de Mari Gomez, fol. viii., 
ix. (MS. penes me). 

^ Proceso de Maria Paredes, fol. i., xxiii. CMS. penes me). 
^ MSS. of Library of University of Halle, Yc. 20, Tom. I. 



106 CONVERSION BY EDICT. 

affirmed their faith or persistently denied the accusation 
in the face of what was considered sufficient evidence, 
for this was regarded by the Inquisition as a proof of 
impenitent guilt. For the most part the tribunal suc- 
ceeded in obtaining confession with show of repentance 
entitling the accused to reconciliation or some milder in- 
fliction. But perhaps the most instructive feature of the 
record is the number of trivial cases which reveal how 
jealously the Moriscos were watched by their Christian 
neighbors, eager to denounce them on the slightest suspi- 
cion, and how easy it was to provoke them in an alterca- 
tion to some careless word which would justify seizing 
them and throwing them in gaol until the Inquisition 
could be notified to send and fetch them. The Morisco 
thus lived in a perpetual atmosphere of anxiety, never 
knowing at what moment he might be put on trial for 
his life. In 1575 Garci Rodriguez is tried on an accu- 
sation of saying that in the war of Granada a certain 
captain had been saved by a soldier and not by invoking 
God and the Virgin, and he escapes with abjuration de 
levi in a penitential habit. Diego Herrez, when a man 
called Mahomet a knave, had the imprudence to say 
^^ What is Mahomet to you V^ and was sentenced to abjure 
de levi, to receive a hundred lashes and four months' in- 
struction from his parish priest. In 1579 Gabriel de 
Carmona, a youth of 17, travelling with four other Moris- 
cos, was accused by three chance road companions of sing- 
ing the Zambra antigua—Si song customary at Moorish 
weddings. The secular officials of Orgaz promptly threw 
all five in gaol and handed them over to the Inquisition 
which duly tried them. Gabriel denied the charge and 
that he even knew the zambra and when the witnesses 
came to ratify their testimony it appeared that none of 



INQUISITION IN CASTILE, 107 

them knew Arabic, or what the zambra was, or what 
Gabriel had been singing. They were all acquitted but 
there could be no compensation for their suffering and 
the interference with their affairs. Isabel, a Morisca 
girl aged 20, was accused by her mistress and daughter 
and another witness, of having in a quarrel sent all Chris- 
tians to the devil and spoken of her having a different 
law from theirs. On trial she admitted certain imprudent 
utterances when her mistress called her a bitch and a 
hound, but she disabled their testimony by proving 
enmity and when the inquisitors differed as to the sen- 
tence the Suprema ordered the case dismissed. In 1584 
Alonso de la Guarda was accused by his wife of denying 
the virginity of the Virgin and she arranged with the 
commissioner of the Inquisition that he and three other 
witnesses should be concealed while she led her husband 
on to talk ; unluckily for the plot he answered her ques- 
tions in Arabic so tliat they did not understand what he 
said, but he was arrested, sent to Toledo and tried. In 
his defence he proved that his wife was too intimate with 
one of the witnesses ; she and the latter were examined, 
but the truth could not be ascertained, the evidence was 
not considered sufficient to justify torture and the case 
was dismissed. Less fortunate w^as Alonso de Soria who, 
becoming irritated in a discussion on being told that the 
Moriscos never confessed fully, exclaimed that confession 
was nothing — the real confession was in heaven. Fear- 
ing that he would be denounced for this he went volunta- 
rily to the Inquisition and denounced himself. The wit- 
nesses summoned confirmed his story, but the inquisitors 
were not satisfied and tortured him to see whether they 
could find out something more, but without success, so he 
was let off with abjuration de levi, hearing mass as a peni- 



108 CONVERSION B Y EDICT, 

tent and a fine of ten ducats. Juan Gomez^ an Algerine 
Moor^ was a voluntary convert who on the road-side was 
bitten by some dogs. He beat them off^ when their master 
came and abused him^ beat him^ and denounced him for 
saying that the Moorish law was better than the Christian 
and that he would live and die in it. On his trial he de- 
fended himself by asserting that he was a good Christian 
but his Spanish was imperfect and that in his passion he 
had meant to say that the Moors observed their law better 
than the Christians for they welcomed converts and treated 
them well. The inquisitors humanely took his recent con- 
version into consideration and agreed to regard his im- 
prisonment during trial as sufficient punishment^ so he 
escaped with a reprimand and two months^ seclusion in 
a convent for instruction. The very triviality of these cases 
is their chief importance as they show how the Moriscos 
lived on a lava-crust which might at any moment give way 
and how ready a means the Inquisition furnished for enmity 
to satisfy a grudge in safety^ protected by its suppression 
of the names of witnesses. A simple trial for heresy was 
in itself^ as we have seen^ no slight infliction and besides 
there was the ready resort to torture which^ in the juris- 
prudence of the period^ was the universal solvent of judi- 
cial doubts. In the 190 cases contained in the record before 
us^ it was employed in 55 — in four of them twice — and in 
a considerable portion of those which were suspended or 
discontinued the accused had been tortured without ex- 
tracting a confession.^ 

But these trivial accusations were by no means all that 
the Moriscos had to dread. At any moment the treachery 
or trial of one might involve a whole community. In 

1 MSS. of Library of University of Halle, Yc. 20, Tom. I. 



INQ UISITION IN CASTILE. 109 

1606^ a girl of nineteen named Maria Paez^ daughter of 
Diego Paez Limpati^ brought desolation on the Moriscos 
of Almagro by accusing her parents^ sisters^ uncles^ cousins^ 
kindred and friends. Incriminations of course spread. 
The girFs father was burnt as an impenitent because he 
would not confess ; her mother^ who confessed^ was recon- 
ciled and condemned to imprisonment for life and in all 
twenty-five Moriscos of Almagro suffered^ of whom four 
were relaxed to the secular arm. As confiscation accom- 
panied the sentence in every case the Inquisition probably 
gathered a fairly abundant harvest.^ The Moorish com- 

^ A summary of tlie sentences passed on Moriscos in the MS. cited 

above shows — 

Died during trial ....... 5 

Acquittals . . 14 

Cases dismissed . . . . . . .5 

Cases suspended ....... 30 

Abjuration de levi^ 24 

Abjuration de vehemenii ...... 15 

Instruction ordered .32 

Keprimand in audience chamber .... 8 

Spiritual penance 6 

Reconciliation with confiscation . . . .78 
Reconciliation without confiscation .... 5 
Fines (the highest 100 ducats) .... 5 

Exile 2 

Wearing sanbenito ....... 5 

Sanbenito and prison for a term . . . .27 

Sanbenito and prison perpetual (usually discharged 
after three years) ....... 32 

Sanbenito and prison perpetual, irremissible . . 3 
Scourging (mostly 100 lashes, but sometimes 200) . 15 
Galleys (for terms of from 3 to 10 years) . . 14 

Relaxed to secular arm for burning . . . .11 

In the Seville auto de fe of September 24, 1559, there were three 

Moriscos burned and eight reconciled with sanbenito and prison ; of 

these six were also scourged, including three women. — Archivo de 

Simancas, Hacienda, Legajo 25, fol. 2. 



110 CONYEESION B Y EDICT, 

munities were constantly subject to devastation of this 
kind. In 1585, at an auto de £e in Cuenca, there were 
twenty-one of them — one relaxed, seventeen reconciled 
and three required to abjure de vehementi — of whom thir- 
teen were from the village of Soquellamos and seven 
from Villaescusa de Haro.^ In 1589 the Inquisition 
of Valencia penanced eighty-three Moriscos of Mislata 
and in 1590 it added seventeen more.^ 

Such were the conditions of existence of the Moriscos 
of Castile — of the old Mudejares who for generations had 
been loyal and faithful subjects and industrious citizens 
contributing to the prosperity of the land. Such was the 
gentleness with which Fonseca says the Inquisition sought 
to induce them to obedience without frightening them 
and such were the benignant methods which a recent 
writer assures us were employed by the Inquisition to 
win them over.^ The learned Juan Bautista Perez, 
Bishop of Segorbe, knew better when, in 1595, in enumer- 
ating fifteen impediments to their conversion he included 
their fear of the Inquisition and its punishments which 
make them hate religion^ — that is, the religion of their 
persecutors. If it were not so tragic there would be food 
for grim mirth in the rhetorical amplification with which 
the clerical writers of the period dilate on the devilish and 
inexpugnable obstinacy with which the Moriscos clung to 
their false faith and resisted the kindly efforts made for 
their salvation. 

^ Archive de Simancas, Inquisicion, Leg. 1157, fol. 155. 

2 Archivo Hist. Kacional, Inqii de Valencia, Leg. 98. 

^ Fonseca, Giusto Scacciamento, p. 346. — Menendez y Pelayo, 
Heterodoxos espanoles IL 628. — *^La Inquisicion apuraba todos los 
medios benignos y conciliatorios." 

* Arcbivo de Simancas, Inq^i de Valencia, Leg. 205, fol. 3. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE INQUISITION. 

In order properly to understand the influence exerted 
by the Inquisition a brief summary of its processes and 
methods is necessary. The impenetrable secrecy which 
shrouded all its operations invested it with a terror 
possessed by no other tribunal. When a prisoner was 
arrested he disappeared from human view as though the 
earth had opened to swallow him ; his trial might last 
two^ three, or four years, during which his family knew 
not whether he were dead or alive, until in some public 
auto de fe he reappeared and sentence was read, con- 
demning him to relaxation, or the galleys, or perpetual 
imprisonment, or perhaps discharging him with some 
trivial penalty. Geronimo Moraga, a Morisco, when on 
trial in Saragossa in 1577, explained how he met certain 
persons in December, 1576, w^hile on his way to the city 
to be present at an auto de fe announced for that time, 
in order to see whether his father and brother, who had 
been arrested some time previously, would appear in it.^ 
It was the only way in which he could learn their fate and 
put an end to agonizing suspense. The prisoner at his 
first audience was sworn not to reveal anything that should 
occur while he was in prison, and after the auto de fe, if 
he was not burnt, a similar but more solemn oath was 

^ Archivo de Simancas, Inq^i de Valencia, Leg. 205, fol. 4, 



112 THE INQ VISIT ION. 

administered to him before he was discharged to undergo 
his penance. All officials and witnesses were likewise 
bound to inviolable secrecy. The tribunal was thus 
shielded from all criticism and released from all respon- 
sibility save to the Suprema. No one could call in ques- 
tion its justice and no one could complain of its acts for 
every mouth was sealed. Human nature is not fitted to 
wield wholly irresponsible power over the lives and for- 
tunes of men^ and such a system^ while it gave free rein 
to the evil-disposed, could not but affect injuriously even 
the well-intentioned judge. 

A corollary to this system of secrecy was the careful 
suppression of the names and identity of the witnesses^ 
who thus were likewise released from all personal respon- 
sibility^ save in the exceedingly rare cases of prosecution 
for perjury. Their evidence was taken in secret by the 
inquisitor, there was no cross-examination or endeavor to 
test its accuracy, and when, at a subsequent stage of the 
trial, it was " published ^^ or read to the accused, it was 
in a garbled form, drawn up so as to prevent, as far as 
possible, any identification of the witnesses by him. All 
this, of course, threw almost insuperable difficulties in the 
way of the defence, nor were they much diminished by 
the simulacrum of allowing him counsel. He was offered 
a choice between two or three advocates who formed part 
of the official staff of the tribunal, and with the one 
selected he was permitted to communicate only in pres- 
ence of the inquisitors. In the majority of cases the main 
duty of the advocate consisted in urging his client to con- 
fess and throw himself on the mercy of the court, and in 
case a serious defence was undertaken he was forbidden 
to communicate with the friends and kindred of the ac- 



DEFENCE.— CONFESSION. 113 

cused, for this would be a violation o£ the indispensable 
secrecy. Defence was possible in but two ways^ tachas 
and abonos. The former consisted in guessing the names 
of the adverse witnesses and if possible disabling them 
for enmity^ the latter in adducing testimony of good 
character. Even this modicum of defence was seriously 
limited by the rule that New Christians^ while freely 
admitted as witnesses for the prosecution^ were not allowed 
to testify in favor of the accused. It is true that^ in 1526 
and 1529^ the inquisitors were instructed that in cases of 
Moriscos who could call no other witnesses they might 
use their discretion in admitting them.^ 

The whole theory of the inquisitorial process was the 
assumption that the accused would not have been arrested, 
if he were not guilty, and the effort throughout the trial 
was to make him confess, with the powerful agency in 
reserve of torture to compel him to do so. Simple con- 
fession, moreover, was insufficient to merit the doubtful 
mercy of reconciliation combined with confiscation and 
other penalties ; to be efficacious it must be the result of 
conversion and repentance, implying the denunciation of 
all accomplices in the crime of heresy, including the near- 
est and dearest ; the wife could scarce have been guilty 
without the husband^ s participation ; the child could 
scarce have gone astray without the guidance of the par- 
ents, and thus, when one member of a family fell into the 
hands of the Inquisition, the rest as a rule speedily fol- 
lowed and the whole household recognized each other in 
the resultant auto de fe. Denial of guilt and persistent 
assertion of orthodoxy were of no service as against the 

1 MSS, of Eoyal Library of Copenhagen, 3186. p. 306. 



114 ' THE INQUISITION, 

evidence of two witnesses ; it merely demonstrated that 
the accused was impenitent — a negativo — and as such he 
was relaxed to the secular arm for burning. 

How scanty were the chances of escape^ when the pre- 
sumption was always against the accused^ is seen in the 
case of Francisco Doquin Frare and his wife Maria Gilo 
tried^ in 1575^ by the Inquisition of Valencia. There 
was but one witness against them — a man who had been 

convicted and burnt. The accused chanced to identifv 

t/ 

him and proved that he was a personal enemy of Frare. 
Notwithstanding this^ when the case came to be voted on 
there was discordia, or disagreement. One of the inqui- 
sitors and the episcopal Ordinary voted to make them 
appear in an auto de f e^ to fine them and send them to 
the prison of penitents for instruction ; the other inquisi- 
tor and the consultores voted for torture in order to further 
enlightenment. This prevailed and was executed on the 
husband^ though the wife was mercifully spared because 
she was suckling a child — the final result being fine and 
imprisonment for an unproved offence.^ 

Still more illustrative of inquisitorial methods and of 
the hatred of Christianity^ which they naturally provoked^ 
is the case of Mari Gomez^ one of the Moriscos of Daimiel. 
May 1, 1540, she was arrested on evidence which had 
been accumulating since 1538. After commencing with 
protestations of orthodoxy, the interrogatories of her well- 
trained judges in successive audiences drove her to one 
admission after another. In June she managed to convey 
to her daughter, Maria Cassilla, an injunction to confess, 
the result of which was that, on September 1st, the daughter 

^ Archivo Hist. Nacional, Inq^ de Valencia, Legajo 396, 



INQUISITORIAL METHODS, 115 

made a confession in which her mother was represented 
as a confirmed and persistent Moor. When this and some 
other new testimony was read to Mari Gomez she could 
not be induced to admit it all, she vacillated and revoked 
some of her admissions — a most serious offence in the 
inquisitorial system^ which brought on her a sentence of 
torture^ April 4^ 1541. On June 8th^ after a long and 
strenuous effort to make her confess^ she was taken to the 
torture chamber and stripped^ which extracted a confes- 
sion with the explanation that she had not made it earlier 
in hopes of saving her daughter. She was made to tell 
all she knew about others and the torture was suspended. 
After duly ratifying her confession^ June 9th^ on the 12th 
she was sentenced to reconciliation^ confiscation and per- 
petual imprisonment with the sanbenito. After nearly 
three years, on the testimony of the alcaide of the prison 
that she was buen penitente, on May 31, 1544, her prison 
was changed to Daimiel, where she was never to leave 
her house without the sanbenito, she was to hear mass on 
all Sundays and feast-days and to confess and commune 
on the three great feasts of Christmas, Easter and Pente- 
cost — a fairly effective way of rendering odious the ob- 
servances of religion. A few days later, on June 4th, she 
presented a pitiful petition representing that her husband 
is in the penitential prison ; he is in great necessity and 
requires her services, wherefore she begs that she may be 
alloAved to remain in Toledo, where she will reside near 
the prison and succor him ; furthermore she prays that 
she may be allowed to take with her the bedding from 
her confiscated property, on which she has been sleeping, 
and retain it till her penance is completed. Then, on 
I^ovember 18, 1545, she presented an order which she 



116 THE INQ UISITION. 

had procured from the Suprema^ reciting that she has 
been a good penitent and ordering the inquisitors to com- 
mute her prison and sanbenito into spiritual penances of 
fasts^ prayers and pilgrimages^ conditioned on her not 
leaving the kingdoms of Castile and Leon. The san- 
benito was at once removed and she was discharged^ the 
penances enjoined being Friday fasting for a year^ recita- 
tion of five Paternosters and Ave Marias on all Sundays 
and feast-days and visiting the hermitage nearest to 
Daimiel. Her troubles, however, were by no means 
over. In 1550 she was included, as a simulated con- 
fessor and relapsed impenitent, in a batch of Daimiel 
women to be tried again — Mari Lopez la Brava, Mayor 
la Roya, Juana Diaz, Mari Hernandez, Mari Herrera and 
Isabel del Niiio — and on July 14th she was thrown into 
the secret prison. Her confession was held to have been 
fictitious and imperfect because she had omitted in it to 
mention certain matters, as for instance a fact contained in 
the evidence of a prisoner, in 1541, that, nine or ten years 
before, a kid had been killed in her house after the fashion 
of the Moors, by cutting its throat ; also she had not 
mentioned all the persons who had changed linen and 
rested on Thursday nights and Fridays and she had not 
confessed to irregular attendance at mass. Then she was 
a relapsed impenitent because since her penance she had 
proposed to marry a son to a girl within the prohibited 
degrees without obtaining a dispensation and she had twice 
spoken of Allah. In the course of her trial she attempted 
defence by both tachas and abonos, but on January 22, 
1551, it was voted that the evidence required to be purged, 
wherefore she should be tortured as much as she could 
bear. She endeavored to escape this by alleging a rup- 



INQUISITORIAL METHODS. 117 

ture, but the midwife called in to examine her reported 
that this was not the case^ although her belly w^as swelled. 
On March 5th she was tortured with great severity — six- 
teen turns of the sharp cords around legs and arms^ then 
the escalera — a sort of inclined frame in which the head 
was lower than the feet — and finally a cord twisted around 
the head while two jars of water (about half a gallon) 
w^ere made to trickle down the throat by means of a rag 
thrast down. She shrieked and screamed, appealed to 
God and begged to be killed, but persistently declared 
that she had nothing to confess and when her tormentors 
were satisfied the torture was suspended. On March 9th 
she was voted to be punished arbitrarily, with reclusion 
in her house and spiritual penances if she were poor and 
had nothing, but on investigation it was found that she 
possessed some property and that on her return to Daimiel 
after her first imprisonment she had succeeded in recov- 
ering 9000 maravedis from the receiver of confiscations, 
so she was fined twenty ducats for the expenses of the 
Inquisition and was sentenced to keep her house in Dai- 
miel as a prison for four months, never leaving it except 
to attend mass and sermons and from Easter to Pentecost 
of that year she was to fast on Fridays and recite four 
Paters and Aves.^ Now all this was the ordinary every- 
day routine of the Inquisition and there is small cause 
for surprise if the Moriscos were confirmed more and more 
in their abhorrence of a faith propagated after this fashion. 
The faith, however, was, to some extent, rather a 
pretext and the Inquisition recognized that if its opera- 
tions incited to discontent and rebellion, its severity was 

^ Proceso de Marl Gomez (MS. penes me). 



118 THE INQ UISITION. 

an important factor in keeping the Moriscos in subjection. 
A letter to Philip II. from the inquisitors of Saragossa^ 
June 6; 1585^ enclosing a relation of an auto de fe held 
that day, in which there were five culprits burnt and 63 
reconciled, who were nearly all Moriscos, dwells on the 
service rendered in repressing their insolence ; they have 
been deprived of their leaders, they now seem quiet and 
obedient and no longer manifest their customary impu- 
dence and effrontery.^ The inquisitors also call special 
attention to their usefulness in another direction, for they 
take care to point out that they have sent twenty-nine 
Moriscos to serve in the galleys, besides three left over 
from the auto de fe of the previous September. Galley 
slaves were always in demand and although such brutal 
punishment was usually reserved for specially blasphe- 
mous cases of heresy, the Suprema issued orders. May 8, 
1573, to send the new converts to the galleys even when 
they confessed readily and well, a command which it 
repeated in 1591.^ 

There doubtless is some truth in the assertion that the 
terror of the Inquisition was less for the Moriscos than 
for Spaniards, since the former when punished were natur- 
ally regarded by their fellows as martyrs and were conse- 
quently held in high esteem. It was for them an honor to 
appear on the scaffold of an auto de fe and thus the infamy 
which was one of the severest inflictions accompanying the 
penances of the Holy Office was ineffective, especially in 
Morisco communities, where we are told that such martyrs 

1 Biblioteca Nacional, Seccion de MSS. PV. 3, No. 20. 

2 Archive Hist. Nacional, Inq'^ de Valencia, Leg. 5, No. 1, fol. 285, 
329. The buen confitente was always regarded as entitled to mitigation 
of punishment. 



FINES AND CONFISCATIONS, 119 

were frequently rewarded with rich brides. There is a 
story of a woman who, when the sanbenito was put on 
her, asked for another for her child, as the weather was 
cold. Another story illustrates this and also the care 
with which all expenses were thrown upon the culprits. 
A number of Moriscos of Gestalgar were scourged in an 
auto de fe, after which the executioner went there to 
collect his fees from his patients ; one from whom he 
demanded payment refused on the ground that he had 
not been flogged, and on investigation it was found that 
he had been inadvertently omitted, whereupon the lashes 
were duly administered, to his great satisfaction.^ 

Pecuniary penances and confiscation, however, were of 
another character and were acutely felt, not only by the 
Moriscos themselves but by their lords, who naturally 
objected to the impoverishment of their vassals, as they 
desired to extort all that patient industry could earn, 
over and above a bare existence. When, after the fall 
of the Roman Empire, heresy first became the subject of 
systematic persecution in the twelfth and thirteenth cen- 
turies, confiscation was one of the penalties decreed for it 
under the canon law and princes w^ho did not enforce this 
vigorously Avere threatened with the censures of the 
Church.^ The monarch who profited by the spoliation 
of his subjects could therefore, strictly speaking, not 
forego it without papal authorization, leading at times to 
some curious and intricate questions. Although in Spain, 
as elsewhere, the confiscations enured to the royal fisc and 
in the earlier times of Ferdinand and Isabella they had 

^ Bledse Defensio Fidei, p. 98 ; Cronica, p. 883. — Fonseca, p. 85. 
2 Cap. 10 Extra, V. vii.— Innoc. P.P. IV. Bull. Cum fraires (BuUar. 
Koman. I. 90). 



1 20 THE INQ UISITION. 

been a source of large income^ as they diminished in 
amount they had practically been diverted to the Inqui- 
sition^ which was always pleading poverty^ and little 
attention was paid to the degrading spectacle of judges 
pronouncing sentences in which they were personally in- 
terested as a source from which their salaries were to be 
paid. Fines^ or pecuniary penances as they were euphe- 
mistically termed^ occupied virtually the same position. 
In the early days of the Spanish Inquisition they were its 
perquisite ; then the crown claimed and took them^ but 
finally the Inquisition recovered them by the device of 
imposing them for its extraordinary expenses. 

In the kingdoms of Castile there was no question as to 
the applicability of all this to the Moriscos, but in those 
of Aragon it was different. This was especially the case 
in Valencia^ where the Moriscos were most numerous and 
the interest of the nobles and gentry in them was great- 
est. The earliest fuerOy granted by Jayme I. after the 
conquest^ provided that in case of condemnation to death 
for heresy^ treason or other crime, the allodial lands and 
personal property of the offender should be confiscated 
to the king, but feudal lands or those held under a censo 
or rent-charge, or other service, should revert to the lord. 
When the new Inquisition was established, it paid no 
attention to this and, in 1488, the ecclesiastics and nobles 
in the cortes of Orihuela complained to Ferdinand and de- 
manded its observance to which he assented. This proved 
nugatory, for the Inquisition continued to confiscate and, 
in the cortes of 1510, the nobles repeated the complaint 
and asked that he should compound for the lands illegally 
obtained and that purchasers should be compelled to pay 
all rent-charges and fines for transfer, to all of which he 



DISBEGABB OF LAW. 121 

gave his assent. This was as ineffectual as the previous 
promises and^ in 1533, the complaint was repeated in the 
cortes of Monzon ; it was the lords and the churches that 
suffered by the confiscation imposed on their vassals ; 
only corporal punishments should be inflicted, not pecu- 
niary ones, and some compromise should be reached as 
to past infractions of the fuero to be determined by a 
commission. To this the reply was equivocal ; there was 
no confiscation and, please God, with the efforts now on 
foot for the instruction of the new converts, there will be 
no necessity for it in future, but, if there should be, pro- 
vision will be made to protect the lords, and meanwhile a 
commission can decide what is just as to the past.^ 

The next year, at Saragossa, Charles issued a solemn 
pragmatica for Aragon in which, after consultation with 
the inquisitor-general and Suprema, he promulgated as a 
law to be inviolably observed that, if any of the new con- 
verts should commit apostasy requiring confiscation, the 
property should be made over to the legal Catholic heirs, 
or in default of such be distributed in accordance with 
the intestate laws of Aragon, and perpetual silence was 
imposed on the royal fisc which was declared to have no 
claim, and all this without prejudice to the lords of the 
culprits. This he swore to publicly with his hand on 
the gospel and ordered its enforcement by his son Philip 
and all royal officials.^ 

^ Coleccion de Doc. ined. XVIII. 106-13. — Archivo de Simancas, 
Patronato Keal, Legajo unico, fol. 37. 

2 Archivo de Simancas, Inqn, Libro 939, fol. 9. 

A brief of Paul III., under date of 1536, asks Charles to adopt 
exactly this policy and habilitates the descendants of offenders to hold 
such property. There may be a mistake in the date, and it may have 
given the impulse to Charles. In any event it was practically a papal 



122 THE INQUISITION, 

As the crown no longer had any interest in the confis- 
cations^ Charles could waive his rights without sacrifice^ 
but the Inquisition was not disposed to abandon its claims. 
The cortes of the three kingdoms^ in 1537^ presented 
formal complaints that it seized lands that were held in 
fief and on ground-rents and even such as had been 
bought in good faith from Moriscos and had been im- 
proved by the new owners. The Inquisition denied these 
charges, but the cortes instanced lands of which the 
dominium directum belonged to the chapter of Valencia 
and other churches, and they asked the emperor to issue 
positive commands to the inquisitors to obey the laws, 
which he promised to do.^ The Suprema however replied 
in a consulta in which it argued that confiscation was the 
most efficient penalty for the repression of heresy ; the 
heretic could escape burning by confession and reconcilia- 
tion and if there were no confiscation heresy would be 
unpunished.^ With imperturbable obstinacy therefore 
the Inquisition maintained its position and the cortes of 
Monzon, in 1542, reiterated the complaint that the inqui- 
sitors wholly disregarded the law ; its officials refused to 
do justice and the secular courts were afraid to interfere. 
It was asked that, in cases of condemnation for heresy, 
the dominium utile of the convict should revert to the 

confirmation of the policy. — Biblioteca Nacional, Seccion de MSS. Dd. 
145, fol. 352. 

^ Archivo de Simancas, Patronato Real, Inq^i, Legajo unico, fol. 37, 
38 (See Appendix No. VI.).— Coleccion de Doc. ined. XVIII. 114.— 
One of the worst features of confiscation was that it was held to operate 
as soon as an act of heresy was performed ; ownership then at once 
enured to the fisc and any subsequent sale by the apparent owner was 
void and the buyer was stripped of it. 

2 Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 78, fol. 192. 



DISBEOABD OF LAW. 123 

dominium directum of the lord and that the royal officials 
should be compelled to act and put the lord in possession 
under pain of 1000 florins^ to all of which Charles gave 
his assent/ Then Paul III. intervened^ in his brief of 
August 2^ 1546; which virtually superseded the Inquisi- 
tion, and decreed that for ten years and subsequently 
during the pleasure of the Holy See^ there should be no 
confiscation of the property of Moriscos nor any pecu- 
niary penalties imposed.^ 

No attention seems to have been paid to this papal 
utterance. In 1547 the cortes of Valencia renewed the 
complaint that the Inquisition disregarded the law which 
in confiscation reunited the dominium utile with the 
directum. In order that it might be enforced they there- 
fore asked that the inquisitor-general should sign the 
fuero and send instructions to his subordinates to obey 
it. It was thus recognized that the emperor's signature 
was insufficient ; that the Holy Office was an independent 
body in the state, bound by no law save of its own mak- 
ing. Prince Philip admitted this when he gave his 
assent to the article — Plau a sa Alteza — adding that he 
would order the inquisitor-general and the apostolic com- 
missioner entrusted with the affairs of the Moriscos to be 
treated with and when the matter was concluded the 
necessary letters would be issued. There was no inten- 
tion of concluding the matter^ for the cortes of 1552 com- 
plained that the agreement with the inquisitor-general 
had not yet been reached, and those of 1564 reviewed 
the whole question. They said that in 1533 Charles V. 

1 Coleccion de Doc. ined. XVIII. 116. 

2 Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Lib. iii. fol. 33. 



1 24 THE INQ UISITIOK 

had granted that in cases of confiscation for heresy the 
property should go not to the fisc but to the kindred and 
that in 1537 he had repeated this and promised its con- 
firmation by the inquisitor-general and pope ; this con- 
firmation had never come and they asked that it be 
obtained as well as that of the law consolidating the 
dominium utile with the directum} To this the reply of 
Philip II. was that he would ask the consent of the 
inquisitor-general. How safe he was in making this 
promise is seen in the instructions issued this same year 
by the Suprema to the inquisitors of Valencia in which 
they are specifically told to confiscate the property of 
the Moriscos no matter what the people may say about 
having a privilege against confiscation.^ Its obstinacy 
is intelligible when we see how frequently it drew upon 
that tribunal for the salaries of its members and offi- 
cials.^ 

Meanwhile in Aragon the pragmatica of 1534^ which 
had received the assent of the Inquisition^ was dexterously 
evaded. The cortes of 1547 complained to the inquisitor- 
general that, as the inquisitors could no longer confiscate 
property, they had adopted a system of pecuniary penances 
that was worse than confiscation, for fines were imposed 
greater than the wealth of the penitents who were obliged 
to sell all their property and in addition to impoverish 
their kinsfolk — to which the contemptuous reply was that 

1 Coleccion de Doc. ined. XVIII. 119-24.— Bledse Defensio Fidei, 
pp. 333-6. 

2 Archive Hist. Nacional, Inq^ ^q Valencia, Legajo 2, MS. 16, fol. 
187. 

^ Archive de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 940, fol. 34-60. 



COMPROMISE IN VALENCIA. 125 

if any one was aggrieved he could apply for relief to the 
inquisitors or to the Suprema.^ 

At lengthy in Valencia^ a satisfactory concordia or agree- 
ment was reached. Already^ in 1537^ a compromise 
had been proposed by the cortes of Valencia of a pay- 
ment to the Inquisition of 400 ducats per annum if the 
inquisitors should be restrained from levying fines on 
Moriscos in the guise of pecuniary penance^ but the 
Suprema rejected it as inadequate and as a disservice to 
God.^ In 1571, however, there was more disposition to 
listen to such suggestions. The rebellion of the Moriscos 
of Granada had just been suppressed after a prolonged 
effort which had exhausted the resources of Spain in men 
and money and had depopulated that flourishing king- 
dom. It was a warning not to push oppression too far 
and consideration was given to the complaints of the 
syndics of the Valencia al jamas at the court. Cosme 
AbcD-Amir, a noble Morisco, himself under prosecution 
by the Inquisition, was residing at the court in possession 
of considerable influence and aided their efforts, which 
resulted in a royal cedula of October 12, 1571. This 
recited the moderation with which the apostasy of the 
Moriscos had hitherto been treated, but now, in order 
that in future there may be no excuse and that they may 
be punished with all merited rigor, the Inquisitor-general 
Espinosa has condescended to grant to the Moriscos of 
Valencia the articles presented by them. These articles 
provided that, in consideration of a payment of 50,000 
sueldos (equivalent to 2500 ducats) per annum to the 

^ Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 922, fol. 15. 
2 Ibid. Libro 78, fol. 168, 



126 THE INQ UISITION. 

Inquisition^ the property of the conversos and their de- 
scendants entering into the arrangement shall not be 
subject to confiscation for heresy^ including dogmatizers, 
alfaquies, circumcisers^ relapsed and prisoners under trial 
but not sentenced^ and no sequestration was to be made 
on arrest. Pecuniary penances moreover were limited to 
ten ducats^ but the aljamas of the culprits were liable for 
them. Any aljama could decline to come into the arrange- 
ment^ and in such case its members were liable to confis- 
cation which should be computed as part of the 50,000 
sueldoS; but any one could come in at any time on agree- 
ing to pay its share, and even individuals of outside aljamas 
were to be received on paying the proper assessment on 
their property. A grace of 500 or 600 ducats moreover 
was allowed in consideration of confiscations decreed but 
not covered in. To confirm this agreement papal briefs 
and privileges from the king and inquisitor-general were 
to be procured at the cost of the Moriscos and if they 
desired it to be included as a fuero in the next cortes the 
king promised to assent to it. So large a portion of the 
aljamas accepted this commutation that thereafter it is 
always spoken of as in force throughout Valencia, but a 
document of 1585 shows that there were still some which 
held aloof .^ This arrangement was mutually satisfactory 
from a financial point of view. The Holy Office was 
assured of an annual revenue of which it was in need, 
while the Moriscos felt that they were paying for insur- 
ance against the impoverishment of their families and the 
miseries of sequestration which was the invariable accom- 

^ Danvila, pp. 183-88.— Archivo Hist. Nacional, Inq^ ^q Valencia, 
Cartas del Consejo, Leg. 5, No. 1, fol. 107, 



AB USIVE FINES. 127 

paniment of arrest on charges however flimsy. The nobles 
and churches moreover were secured against the alienation 
of their lands and the disabling of their vassals from pay- 
ing the customary tribute. 

It was difficult however to compel the inquisitors to 
observe any limitations on their power to oppress. In 
1595 the aljamas made complaint of infractions of the 
Concordia.^ The power to impose fines of ten ducats 
also was a direct source of revenue which was naturally 
exploited. In the auto de fe of January 7, 1607 there 
were twenty fines of ten ducats on Moriscos of whom 
only eight were reconciled. To this the Suprema took 
exception saying that when there was not reconciliation 
the fine was uncalled for^ unless there was some special 
offence deserving it. In the same auto^ moreover^ there 
was a fine of twenty ducats, one of thirty and one of fifty. 
The judges evidently took care that there should be funds 
to pay their salaries.^ 

The comparative leniency of the concordia was dis- 
pleasing to some of the more rigid churchmen. In 1595 
Bishop Perez of Segorbe drew up by command an elaborate 
report of the situation in which he advocated its revocation^ 
as under it he says that the Moriscos deemed themselves 
at liberty to live as they pleased and confiscation would be 
a restraint on their offences.^ That same year, however, 
the juntas of Madrid and Valencia, which had charge of 
the Morisco question, agreed that there was less apostasy 
in places where confiscation was not permitted under the 

^ Archivo Hist. Nacional, Inq^ de Valencia, Leg. 5, No. 2, fol. 
14,15. 
2 Ibid. Leg. 2, MS. 10, fol. 79. 
* Archivo de Simancas, Inqn de Valencia, Leg. 205, fol. 3, 



128 THE INQ UISITION. 

Concordia and Philip II. resolved that it should be con- 
tinued during the period agreed upon for instruction.^ 
The statistics of the Inquisition of Valencia subsequent 
to the Concordia would indicate that that measure had no 
definite influence on its activity, although the numbers 
fluctuate from year to year in a manner not easy to ex- 
plain.^ Towards the close of the century and during the 
opening years of the seventeenth its vigor seems to in- 
crease ; at an auto de fe held September 5, 1604, there 
were twenty-eight abjurations de levi, forty-nine de vehe- 
mently eight reconciliations and two relaxations — all Moris- 
cos except a Frenchman penanced for blasphemy.^ In 
that of January 7, 1607, there were thirty-three Moris- 
cos, of whom one was relaxed for relapse, besides six 
whose cases were suspended, and in their trials torture 
had been employed fifteen times. ^ That there were not 
more was not for lack of material, for we are told that 
in the town of Carlet there were two hundred and forty 

1 Danvila, p. 228. 

^ From 1570 to 1592 the number of cases of heresy in the Inquisition 
of Valencia are (Arch. Hist. Nac. Inqii de Valencia, Leg. 98) : 



1570, 16 cases 1576, 16 cases 1582, none 1588, 21 cases 
1577,13 '' 1583, 8 cases 1589, 94 '' 

1578, 15 '' 1584, 29 '' 1590, 49 '' 



1571, 55 

1572, 32 

1573, 34 

1574, 16 

1575, 20 



1579, 24 '' 1585, none 1591, 290 

1580,37 '' 1586, 64 cases 1592, 117 

1581, 22 '^ 1587, 35 '' 



In 1591 the number of the reconciled was so great that Archbishop 
Eibera asked that on Sundays and feast-days they should not be 
allowed to come to the cathedral, as the crowd disturbed the services. — 
Arch. Hist. Nac. Inqn de Valencia, Leg. 5, No. 2, fol. 314. 

3 Danvila, p. 263. 

* Archivo Hist. Nac. Inqn de Valencia, Leg. 2, MS. 10, 



TRIVIAL OFFENCES, 129 

Morisco households in which the fast of Ramadan was 
kept.i 

In fact the bungling and misguided efforts at conver- 
sion had been so complete a failure that one can only 
wonder that the whole Morisco population did not pass 
through the hands of the inquisitors. Evidence sufficient 
to warrant arrest and trial was easily obtainable, for it 
was impossible to eradicate ancestral customs, while any 
of these, even when not strictly connected with religion^ 
was held to justify suspicion of heresy, which in itself 
was a crime requiring purgation and penance. In the 
case of Bartolome Sanchez, who appeared in the Toledo 
auto de f e of 1597, cleanliness was regarded as a suspi- 
cious circumstance — doubtless from the Moorish habit 
of bathing — and though he overcame the torture he was 
finally brought to confess and was punished with three 
years in the galleys, perpetual prison and confiscation. 
Miguel Caiiete, a gardener, for washing himself in the 
fields while at work, was tried in 1606 ; there was 
nothing else against him but he was tortured without 
success and his case was suspended. The same year 
Maria Roayne, with her daughter Mari Lopez, was tried 
because when her son was to be married she took to the 
bride^s house some sweetmeats and cakes to be thrown in 
the mattresses according to an old Moorish custom, but 
as nothing else could be proved against them the cases 
were suspended. Putting clean linen on a corpse for 
burial was a highly suspicious practice which warranted 
prosecution, though if nothing else could be proved or 

1 Ibid. Legajo 99. 
9 



130 THE INQUISITION. 

obtained in confession it does not seem to be always 
regarded as punishable; still, in 1591^ Isabel Ruiz for 
so treating her husband^s body appeared in the auto de 
fe, abjured de levi and was fined in 10^000 maravedis/ 
Abstinence from pork and wine was of course a highly 
suspicious circumstance^ which frequently appears in the 
trials ; nothing else seems to be recorded against Juan 
de Mediana^ who appeared in a Saragossa auto de fe in 
1585 and was sentenced to tw^o hundred lashes.^ Re- 
fusal to eat of animals that had died a natural death was 
also a very compromising practice. In the Daimiel trials 
of 1540-50 this was evidently a novel idea to the tribunal 
which inquired curiously into it, apparently regarding it as 
a remarkable custom. In the accusation of Mari Naranja 
one of the articles is that when one of their cattle died 
they gave it to the herdsman or threw it to the dogs, and 
in that of Mari Serrana it is charged that when one of 
her goats died she sold it to an Old Christian for what 
he would give. Apparently Old Christians had no such 
scruples. Staining the nails with henna also figures promi- 
nently in charges against women although Mari Gomez la 
Sazeda pleaded that it was not specially a Moorish cus- 
tom, for Christian women frequently stained their nails 
and hair.^ If it was denied that these customs were relig- 

1 MS. of Library of University of Halle, Yc. 20, Tom. I.— Biblioteca 
Nacional, Seccion de MSS. D, 111, fol. 127. 

2 Biblioteca Nacional, Seccion de MSS. PV. 3, No. 20. 

^ MSS. penes me. The Edict of Granada, in 1526, forbade the use of 
henna, but it was suspended and when, about 1530, Antonio de Guevara, 
then Bishop of Guadix, endeavored to prevent its use by the Morisco 
women, they complained to the chancillery of Granada and the Cap- 
tain-general Mondejar, who intervened and told him it had nothing to 
do with the faith (Marmol Carvajal, Rebelion y Castigo, p. 164). 



ARABIC BOOKS. 131 

ious observances there was always the resource of torture 
to ascertain the intention^ or skilful pressure and the de- 
spairing weariness of prolonged incarceration might lead 
to the admission of formal rites — the fasting of the Ram- 
adan^ the Guadoc, or bath accompanied with a ritual^ or 
the Taor^ another kind of bath prior to reciting the Zala^ 
which was certain prayers uttered with the face to the 
East at sunrise^ noon, sunset and night. The possession 
of books, or papers in Arabic was almost conclusive proof. 
A general rule is enunciated that in such case, if the party 
denies intention^ he is to be sent to the auto de fe with 
or without scourging as the circumstances may indicate.^ 
That this was the practice is shown by the case of Xofre 
Blanch and his wife Angela Carroz, who appeared in the 
Saragossa auto of 1607. It appeared that officials^ 
making a levy and execution in their house^ found under 
the bed a book and^ some papers in Arabic^ for which 
they were promptly imprisoned and tried. Each de- 
clared that the articles had belonged to an uncle of the 
husband and that they were ignorant of the contents. 
Both were tortured without confessing and were sen- 
tenced to abjure de vehementi, to 100 lashes apiece and 
a yearns imprisonment^ with the addition of a ten ducat 
fine on the woman. ^ So in the case of Isabel Zacim ; in 
searching her house (apparently for arms) the officials 
found a Koran in Arabic in a chest. She denied all 
knowledge of it and there was no other evidence against 
her. As she was ninety years old she was spared torture 
and scourging but appeared in a Valencia auto de fe of 

^ Miguel Calvo (Archivo de Alcala, Hacienda, Leg. 544^, Libro 4). 
2 Archivo Hist. Xac, Inq^ de Valencia, Leg. 2, MS. 10, fol. 48-9. 



132 THE INQ UISITION. 

1604^ abjured de vehemently was exposed to a verguenza 
publlca — parading through the streets on an ass with an 
inscription setting forth her name and offence — impris- 
onment till she should be instructed in the faith^ and the 
inevitable ten ducat iine.^ In fact^ the presumption was 
always in favor of guilty when a Morisco was concerned^ 
and inquisitorial methods were well adapted to convert 
that presumption into certainty. Unfortunately the Span- 
ish statesmen could not see that the inevitable result was 
aversion and not conversion. 

The time-honored principle that baptism was necessary 
to subject any one to the jurisdiction of the Inquisition 
came to be violated in the eagerness of the Holy Office 
to extend its functions. Bishop Simancas represents the 
older doctrine when he says that it has no cognizance in 
the case of an unbaptized dogmatizer who performs circum- 
cision on a Christian boy or seeks to make converts ; 
they must be left to the secular courts and there are laws 
enough to punish such offences. Not long afterwards, 
however, Rojas controverts this and asserts that in 
Valencia the inquisitors can proceed against unbaptized 
Jews and Moors who dogmatize among Christians, and 
this became the established rule. It was even ex- 
tended to those who might defend or conceal heretics in 
general.^ 

Fautorship — the favoring or defending of heretics by 
Christians — had been from the first establishment of the 
Inquisition a crime subject to its jurisdiction and severely 

1 Ibid. MS. 7, fol. 3. 

^ Simancae Enchiridion, Tit. xvii. n. 2. — Rojas de Haereticis, P. i. n. 
552-3. — Elucidationes Sancti Officii, ^ 48 ( Archivo de Alcala, Hacienda, 
Leg. 5442, Libro 4). 



FAUTOBSHIP. 133 

punished. It was capable of very extended definition 
and the struggle with the Moriscos gave to the Inquisi- 
tion the opportunity of striking salutary terror in a class 
which did not often fall into its hands. It was not only 
fautors like butchers who slaughtered in Moorish fashion 
or permitted others to do so^ alguaziles who for bribes over- 
looked Morisco apostates^ or midwives who consented to 
perform their ceremonies^ all of whom were to be punished 
with appearance in an auto de fe, scourging, deprivation 
of functions and banishment from Morisco communities.^ 
The feudal lords had antagonized the Inquisition in their 
repeated endeavors to secure for their own benefit the 
confiscations of their vassals ; they deprecated the inter- 
ference which inquisitorial raids were apt to cause with 
the industry of those from whom their revenues were de- 
rived and perhaps sometimes they manifested this with 
too little discretion. Rojas has no hesitation in blaming 
the bishops and nobles who permitted their vassals openly 
to practice Moorish rites to the opprobrium of the Chris- 
tian name, and, in 1567, Gaspar Cocolla, who seemed inti- 
mately acquainted with the Morisco population, told the 
Inquisition that the best way to convert them was to 
begin by converting their lords. On being asked who 
were the lords, he answered the Duke of Segorbe, the 
Admiral and other barons ; he knew nothing about them 
personally but the Moriscos had told him their lords de- 
sired them to remain Moors. Possibly some may have 
gone even further, for in an instruction of the Suprema 
to the tribunal of Valencia, in 1565, it is ordered to 
prosecute the lords and Old Christians who give aid and 

^ Miguel Calvo (Archive de Alcala, he. cit.). 



1 34 THE INQ UISITION. 

favor or use coercion to compel the con versos to live as 
Moors.i 

The earliest instance I have met of such action is 
against an ecclesiastic^ Padre Juan Oliver^ archdeacon of 
Albarracin^ in 1538^ as a fautor of the sect of Mahomet.^ 
In 1542 the Inquisition had a more distinguished victim 
in the person of Don Rodrigo de Beaumont^ of the family 
of the constables of Navarre and akin to the Dukes of 
Alva and Segorbe^ who was prosecuted as a great pro- 
tector of the MoriscoS; even of those who were in corre- 
spondence with Algiers. The most celebrated case how- 
ever was that of Don Sancho de Cordova^ Admiral of 
Aragon^ who was condemned to abjuration de levi, to a fine 
of 2000 ducats and to reclusion at the pleasure of the 
Suprema. This proved perpetual^ for at the age of 73 
he was confined in a convent at Cuenca ; falling sick he 
was transferred to one in Valencia where he lay till re- 
leased by death. In an auto de f e of 1571 there appeared 
the Grand Master of the Order of Montesa and two nobles^ 
Don Luis Pallas and Don Francisco Castellvi; and in 
1578 evidence was taken against two brothers^ Francisco 
and Ramon Carroz^ lords of Ciral and Tega, for keeping 
the Moriscos excited by telling them that they had been 
forcibly baptized^ that they were not subject to the In- 
quisition and that they should appeal to the pope.^ 
Such proceedings could not fail to strike terror through- 
out all ranks of the nobility^ for public penance inflicted 
by the Inquisition not only brought incurable disgrace 
on all the kindred of the culprit but destroyed for his 

^ Rojas de Hsereticis, P. i. n. 12-13. — Danvila, pp. 172, 174-5. 
^ Archive Hist. Nacional, Inq^^ de Valencia, Leg. 390. 
3 Danvila, p. 126, 129, 181, 183, 194. 



OCCASIONAL RESISTANCE, 135 

descendants the limpieza, or purity of bloody which was 
a condition precedent to admission to the great Military 
Orders and to much valuable preferment. This rule 
was only becoming established at this period^ but it was 
rapidly spreading^ and^ in time^ inability to prove lim- 
pieza was one of the sorest misfortunes that could befall 
any man. 

It was not often that the Moriscos mustered courage 
openly to resist the Inquisition^ but when this occurred 
the tribunal visited the offence with exemplary severity. 
The Morisco town of Xea^ near Teruel^ was notorious for 
the turbulence of the population^ and when^ in 1589^ the 
Inquisitor Pedro Pacheco was making a visitation of the 
district even his vicinity did not prevent their continuing 
openly the practice of their religion. From Teruel he 
issued a warrant for the arrest in Xea of Lope de la 
Paridera^ which was executed by the alguazil Miguel 
de Alegria. The people rose in arms to the number^ it 
is said^ of a thousand^ attacked the house in which Lope 
was confined and set him free. In the mel6e the algua- 
zil was struck on the head with a stone, thrown by Luis 
Garan, who was seized and tried. He did not deny 
throwing the stone but asserted that he did not know 
Alegria to be an official of the Inquisition. For this 
he was sentenced to abjure de vehementi, to receive 200 
lashes, to serve six years in the galleys and to be per- 
petually banished from Xea. This was not the first 
occurrence of the kind at Xea for only a few years be- 
fore another prisoner had been similarly rescued.^ 

^ Arcliivo Hist. Nacional, Inq^^ de Valencia, Legajo 383. In the 
accounts for this visitation there is an item of sixty reales paid to the 



136 THE INQ UISITION. 

Thus the Inquisition fully performed its part in stimu- 
lating the aversion of the Moriscos to Christianity and 
in rendering impossible the amalgamation of the races 
on which depended the peace and prosperity of Spain. 

medico and the barbero for curing Alegria and of ninety to him for con- 
finement to his bed for many days. — Ibid. 



CHAPTER VI. 

COXYERSIOX BY PERSUASION. 

It is not to be supposed that Spanish statesmen relied 
wholly on persecution to win the unwilling converts to 
the faith. It is true that in the earlier wholesale bap- 
tism under Isabella^ in 1502^ no traces have been left of 
any organized attempt to instruct the Mudejares^ save 
the perfunctory orders of Ximenes and Ferdinand (pp. 
47, 48), but when the events of the Germania led to 
the edict of 1525 it was recognized that a grave respon- 
sibility was incurred and that if the instruction which 
should precede baptism was impossible, the sacrament 
should at least be followed by earnest and systematic 
efforts to render the neophytes Christians in fact as well 
as in name. These efforts were constant and prolonged 
and, if they were futile, the cause is largely attributable to 
the incurable vices of Spanish administration, the greed 
and corruption which rendered the Moriscos a subject of 
speculation and the impossibility of following a consistent 
course of kindly persuasion and toleration when the fierce 
fanaticism of the age insisted upon regarding all aberrations 
as crimes for which God demanded instant punishment. 

Clement VII., in his brief of May 12, 1524, had merely 
alluded to preaching by the inquisitors as a preliminary 
to giving the Moors the choice between conversion 
and exile. It is true, as we have seen, that the Ger- 
mania missionaries had been sent to do what they could 



1 38 CONVERSION B Y PERS UASION, 

by disputation and persuasion (p. 69) but if they effected 
anything it has not been recorded^ and Charles preceded 
his edict of 1525 with commands that priests should be 
provided and instruction be given in the dogmas of the 
faith (p. 85). Guevara^ for a time, was transferred from 
Valencia to Granada where the situation was similar^ as 
described^ in 1526, by the shrewd Venetian envoy Nava- 
gero — the Moors were Christianized partly by force, but 
they are so little instructed in the faith and there is so 
little care about teaching them, priestly gains being the 
chief object, that they either are as much Moors as ever 
or have no religion of any kind.^ 

Those of Valencia seem to have been abandoned to the 
Inquisition as a missionary agent until the concordia of 
1528 suspended it for a time and involved the necessity 
of milder methods of propagating the faith. Frailes 
were accordingly selected and commissioned to preach to 
them. The only one of these whose name has reached 
us was the Observantine Bartolome de los Angeles, who 
had the recommendation of familiarity with Arabic, but 
unfortunately his evil character unfitted him for the 
work. A letter of the Suprema, September 27, 1529, 
to the inquisitors of Valencia, expresses astonishment at 
the report of his ill doings and orders them at once to 
send proper persons to the places which he had visited in 
order to remove the impression created by his scandals, 
but, with the customary regard for the reputation of the 
Church and churchmen, he is not to be named and no 
charges are to be brought against him.^ 

^ Gachard, Voyages des Souverains des Bays-Bas, I. 208. 
^ Arcliivo de Simancas, Tnquisicion, Libro 76, fol. 235. 



NEGLECT OF INSTRUCTION. 139 

This was of evil augury and portended the troubles 
which never ceased to exist in the dealings with the 
Moriscos. It soon became evident however that to 
Christianize a large population^ living for the most part 
in exclusive communities scattered over the land^ would 
require a complete organization of new parish churches 
with schools and all the appliances for instruction and 
the administration of the sacraments. The bishops of 
Valencia had done nothing ; it was necessary to take the 
matter out of their hands and place it under one head^ 
who should be superior to all episcopal authority in the 
dioceses. Papal delegation w^as essential for this and 
application was made to Clement YII.;, wiio responded 
with a brief of December 9, 1532^ addressed to Inquisitor- 
general Manrique^ in which he accepted for himself the 
responsibility of Charles's edict of 1525 and its happy 
result of the general baptism. Subsequently however^ 
he said^ in consequence of the neglect and absence of their 
priests the converts had returned to their vomit^ and 
worse consequences were to be feared unless due provision 
was made^ wherefore he granted to Manrique full power, 
during his lifetime, to provide persons to teach the con- 
verts, to erect and unite churches and chapels, to appoint 
and dismiss priests, to regulate tithes, in short to organize 
and govern the whole necessary ecclesiastical establish- 
ment, independently of the local bishops. Power w^as 
further given to decide all suits that might arise on the 
part of archbishops, bishops, chapters, abbeys, priests and 
secular lords, compelling obedience by censures and the 
secular arm and by depriving recalcitrants of their bene- 
fices, with perpetual disability for preferment, and in fine 
to do whatever was necessary to effect the object. It 



140 CONVERSION B Y PERSUASION 

was a grant of enormous power^ including that of crush- 
ing resistance expected from the existing hierarchy. 
There must have been remonstrances^ for in about a 
month^ January 11^ 1533^ the brief was followed by 
another^ limiting to a twelvemonth the faculties for effect- 
ing the proposed organization. It doubtless was renewed 
after opposition had been subdued^ for^ November 26^ 
1 540, Paul III. issued a brief to Inquisitor-general Tabera 
in which that of 1532 is recited, adding that the emperor 
had represented that, although Manrique had accomplished 
much yet much remained to be done, and doubts had arisen 
whether his successor as inquisitor-general enjoyed the 
same powers, wherefore Paul subrogates Tabera and con- 
fers on him the same faculties.^ 

The main trouble now, as it continued to be to the end, 
was money, for all classes who saw a chance of gain, in 
the confusion caused by the forcible conversion, grasped 
at what share of the spoils they could. Clement VII., 
in the brief of 1524, had ordered all mosques to be con- 
secrated as churches ; the Moors had paid tithes only on a 
few things ; they were now to pay on all, not to the 
Church but to their lords, to recompense the latter for 
the expected loss of tribute arising from their becoming 
Christians, for they were promised that in all things they 
were to be treated as Christians. In return, their lords 
were to provide the churches with what was requisite for 
divine service and the revenues of the mosques were to 



^ Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Libro 11. fol. 94, 06, 145. 

The supineness of the Valencia hierarchy was attributed to the 
Archbishop of Valencia, Everard de la Marche, one of the Flemings 
promoted by Charles in his younger days. He was non-resident and 
occupied the see from 1520 to 1538. 



SECULARIZATION OF TITHES. 141 

be converted into benefices. There was delay in carrying 
this out^ which interfered with the conversion, for the 
lords held back nntil assured of what they should get, 
but, April 28, 1526, Charles procured from the Legate 
Salviati a bull on the subject, which we are told gave 
rise to innumerable suits, some of them carried up to the 
Roman Eota, as the measure was attacked for invalidity. 
It provided that the Moriscos should pay tithes like Chris- 
tians, but to the king or their other lords in lieu of the 
old tribute ; the funds of the mosques were to be used 
for the churches, and what tithes the Moors had paid to 
their mosques were still to be continued ; if the funds 
thus were more than what was necessary to support the 
churches, the surplus was to be paid to the lords, to whom 
was assured the patronage of these churches and of all 
new ones erected, and all were to be free from any impost 
to the episcopal Ordinaries.^ The lords, secular and 
ecclesiastical, thus sold their consent to the conversion of 
their vassals at a good price, to the impoverishment of 
the new establishment. The churches thus founded came 
to be known as rectories, of which we shall hear much 
hereafter. 

Such was the foundation on which Manrique had to 
build. There had been 213 mosques converted into 
churches in the archbishopric of Valencia, 14 in Tortosa, 
10 in Segorbe and 14 in Orihuela, but the object kept in 
view had been the revenues and not the instruction of the 
Moriscos.^ Acting under the papal faculties, Manrique, 
January 14, 1534 despatched to Valencia Fray Alonso 
de Calcena and Don Antonio Ramirez de Haro, after- 

^ Say as, Anales, cap. 110. — Dormer, Aiiales, Lib. ii. cap. 2. 
2 Danvila, p. 116. — Bledse Defensio Fidei, p. 190. 



142 CONVERSION BY PERSUASION 

wards Bishop of Segovia, as his subdelegates armed with 
full powers and also with the title of inquisitors. Their 
instructions were that after consultation with the viceroy^ 
the Duke of Calabria^ husband of Queen Germaine^ they 
were to complete the ecclesiastical arrangements for the 
Moriscos. If the rectors^ who apparently were not ex- 
pected to reside but merely to enjoy the revenues^ have 
income sufficient to provide chaplains and sacristans they 
must do so ; where they cannot, these must be furnished 
by the prelates who receive the tithes and first-fruits. If 
the nobles endow benefices they are to be patrons with 
power of presentation ; where they do not^ the preferment 
is to be given to persons belonging to the place or the 
nearest vicinity^ taking care that the appointees are fitted 
for the work and that moderate salaries be assigned to 
them by the commissioners in conjunction with the Ordi- 
naries. Careful selection must be made of sacristans who 
will administer justice^ keep the churches clean and in- 
struct the children in the faith^ while^ for the adults 
preachers must be provided and means found for their 
support. A college must be founded for the education 
of children^ who in turn will instruct their parents, and the 
means for this must be discussed. Arrangements must 
be made with the Ordinaries for the administration of the 
sacraments gratuitously, or very cheaply, so that the Moris- 
cos may not be repelled from them, and confession is not 
to be obligatory except at Easter, Annunciation, Ascen- 
sion of the Virgin and All Saints. Marriage fees must 
be reduced ; if the Ordinaries will not consent to this the 
matter is to be referred back to Manrique.^ 

^ Archive de Simancas, Inq^, Libro 77, fol. 227. (See Appendix 
No. VIII. ) 



FINANCIAL DIFFICULTIES. 143 

While much of this was intelhgently adapted to the 
situation one cannot but reflect that eight years had passed 
since the enforced baptism of the Moriscos^ that all this 
elementary work had still to be done, and that the most 
prominent feature of the difficulties to be encountered is 
revealed to be the money question. The Moriscos were 
wellnigh supporting the whole kingdom with the products 
of their toil, yet all their earnings, beyond a bare subsist- 
ence, were so greedily clutched by noble and prelate that 
it was impossible to find means for the religious training 
that was essential to the safety of the state. When the 
final expulsion took place we are told that it reduced the 
revenues of the archbishop from 70,000 ducats to 50,000 
showing how large was the income contributed by the 
Moriscos, yet all that could be drawn from the archiepis- 
copal and other ecclesiastical revenues by papal authority 
for the support of a hundred and ninety new rectories 
founded by the commissioners was 2000 ducats per annum, 
to endow with 30 crowns a year those which were not 
supported by the first-fruits, and when St. Tomas de 
Vilanova assumed the archbishopric, in 1544, it was bur- 
dened with this pension, then designated as suggested by 
the commissioners for the foundation of the college, and 
a further pension of 3000 ducats for his predecessor Jorje 
de Austria who had accepted the benefice of Liege. At 
the same time St. Tomas urged Charles to place zealous 
and exemplary rectors in the Morisco villages with ample 
salaries to enable them to distribute alms, but it does not 
seem to have occurred to him that this was part of his 
duty and that of the Church.^ No change was made and 

^ Cabrera, Eelaciones, p. 464 (Madrid. 1857). — Fonseca, p. 21. — Co- 
leccion de Doc ined. T. V. p. 81. In 1588 Philip ordered the Arch- 



144 CONVERSION BY PERSUASION 

in 1559 a formal report to Philip II. stated that men 
could not be found to serve as rectors for the beggarly 
pittance of thirty ducats a year/ 

It seemed impossible to eradicate the idea that persua- 
sion must be supplemented or superseded by force. In 
1535 we hear that in the Val de Alfandecheln the com- 
missioners appointed an alguazil to drive the Moriscos to 
church on Sundays and feast-days and to punish those 
who did not go. His arbitrary proceedings displeased 
the Duke of Gandia who complained to the viceroy that 
so evil a man should have been selected. The viceroy 
sent for the alguazil who^ on the road to Valencia^ was 
murdered by Gandia' s servants^ whereupon the inquisitors 
applied to the Suprema for instructions and were ordered 
to prosecute the murderers vigorously and to inquire why 
the viceroy dared to summon an official of the Inquisi- 
tion. How little had been accomplished by thus attempt- 
ing to enforce this outward conformity is seen in the 
report of the inquisitors that the new converts live as 
Moors^ circumcise their sons and fast so that Allah may 
grant victory to Barbarossa against Charles V. before 
Tunis. ^ The Cortes of 1537 might well embody in their 
complaints against the Inquisition that the Moriscos had 
not been instructed in the faith nor properly provided 
with churches and yet they were prosecuted for heresy^ 
to which the Suprema loftily replied that they had been 
treated with all moderation and benignity ; as for the 

bishop of Valencia and Bishop of Segorbe to establish a seminary for 
Moriscos to be supported by 1000 ducats a year levied on the labia or 
bourse of Valencia. — Danvila, p. 217. 

^ Danvila, p. 159. 

^ Archivo de Simancas, In(juisicion, Libro 77^ fol. 353, 



DELAYS. 145 

rest^ provision would be made with the emperor's assent.^ 
How slender was the provision may be gathered from a 
letter of the empress-queen^ September 30^ 1536, to the 
commissioner Haro stating that in the town of Oxea^ 
with a population of four hundred households^ mostly 
Moriscos^ there was but one priest^ who was manifestly 
insufficient for their instruction and guidance^ wherefore 
he was ordered to establish two more there.^ There must 
have been a considerable revenue derived from a place 
of that size and some one was doubtless enjoying it. 

There appears to have been some episcopal co-operation 
when we are told that the Archbishop Jorje de Austria 
on leaving his see for Flanders^ in 1539^ issued new 
constitutions for the conversion of the Moriscos and re- 
newed the commission of Benito de Santo Maria to preach 
to them.^ The commissions granted by Manrique to 
Calcena and Haro were held to expire with his death in 
1538 and the work was suspended until his successor 
Tabera was reinvested with the papal faculties. As soon 
as this occurred Haro^ now Bishop of Ciudad Rodrigo^ 
was again commissioned and sent to Valencia with full 
power to prosecute the work.^ He remained until 1545 
when he withdrew in obedience to a summons to attend 
the council of Trent (he was then Bishop of Segovia) from 
which^ however he succeeded in getting himself excused^ 
when Prince Philip'asked the Archbishop Tomas de Vil- 
anova to take charge of the matter. The latter assented^ 
although^ as he truly said^ the work was so important and 

^ Archivo de Simancas, Patronato Eeal, Inquisicion, Leg. unico. 
fol. 38. 

2 Ibid. Inquisicion, Libro 926, fol. 79. ^ Danvila, p. 126. 

* Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 78, fol. 275. 

10 



146 CONVERSION B Y PEES UASION 

SO difficult that it ought to have the exclusive care of the 
person entrusted with it and he could not do justice to it 
in connection with the business of his see/ 

The promised successor to Haro^ as we have seen, was 
never appointed and matters were allowed to drift along 
in neglect. In 1547 the Archbishop furnished a detailed 
report of the situation. The Moriscos were daily becom- 
ing bolder in publicly performing their rites. The col- 
lege consisted of a house with a large garden, in which 
there were thirty children under instruction, but a site 
should be chosen and a new building erected. There had 
been 147 new rectories established, each with a donation 
of 30 libras (or ducats), defrayed partly by appropriating 
two-thirds of the 2000 ducats taken from the archbish- 
opric and partly from the first-fruits and the assessments 
on the provostships, dignities of the cathedral and other 
benefices, but this leaves a deficiency of 106 11. 13 sols, 
11 dineros for the rectories, which will have to be taken 
from the college as there is no other source from which 
to get it. Rectors have been appointed and vacancies 
are filled by the Ordinary. Printed instructions have 
been furnished for the rectors and catechisms for the con- 
verts. In many places alguaziles have been appointed 
to enforce the regulations and compel the converts to 
attend mass and live like Christians. Preachers have 
been sent to instruct, to baptize and to administer the 
sacraments but they have not remained long. A col- 
lector of the revenues of the former mosques has been 
appointed and instructed as to disbursements ; also a 
collector of the 2000 ducats and other dotations, although 

^ Coleccion de Doc. ined. T. V. pp. 92, 93, 



DEPLORABLE CONDITIONS. 147 

he has not been able to perform his functions completely, 
owing to the resistance of the contributors. 

Then the good archbishop proceeds with suggestions, 
which show a deplorable state of things. What is most 
necessary is a rigid inspection and supervision, to see 
whether the converts are trained and taught, to know 
whether the rectors reside and do their duty and live 
decently, what revenues they have from the former 
mosques and how they spend them. For lack of this in- 
spection the rectors neglect their duties, they do not reside 
in the rectories, and some of them live dissolutely. The 
revenues of the former mosques are largely embezzled ; 
they should be ascertained and accounted for and steps 
be taken to apply them to the Morisco churches, and a 
strict accounting should also be demanded from the re- 
ceivers and collectors of the 2000 ducats. As some eccle- 
siastics have refused to pay their assessments for the 
support of the rectories, the king should provide for com- 
pelling payment. Measures should be adopted for the 
instruction of the converts, so that they may no longer be 
able to plead ignorance, and meanwhile they should be co- 
erced into at least external observance, while action should 
be taken against the lords who favor them and impede 
the rectors and alguaziles from compelling them to attend 
mass.^ Twenty years had elapsed since the Moors were 
forcibly baptized, yet practically nothing had been done 
to convert them. Spoliation, embezzlement, malversation 
of every kind had been rife ; a few hundred benefices had 
been created, which neglect rendered virtually sinecures, 
and the revenues of which in not a few cases were squan- 

^ Coleccion de Doc. ined. T. V. pp. 102-7. 



148 CONVERSION B Y PEES UASION. 

dered in riotous living ; the Inquisition had been afforded 
a new source of victims^ after having nearly exhausted the 
old one of Judaic con versos^ but the ostensible object for 
which the great crime of 1525 had been committed had 
not been advanced a step. Under the maladministration 
which had become chronic in Spanish affairs^ persecution 
and persuasion only made Christianity more abhorrent to 
the New Christians. So it remained to the end and 
Spanish statesmen might well begin to look forward 
anxiously and ask what was to be the outcome. 

The efforts to supplement the missionary efforts of the 
rectors and alguaziles by sending learned and eloquent 
friars throughout the land were equally unsuccessful. In 
1543 Charles resolved on an earnest attempt. He an- 
nounced to the Moriscos that he had procured from the 
pope a suspension of the Inquisition and was sending 
among them preachers to whom they must listen with 
reverence and incline their hearts to win salvation for 
if they hardened themselves the penalties provided by 
human and divine law would be enforced.^ One of these 
preachers was the Dominican Juan Micon who shone in 
miracles. His commission empowered him to preach any- 
where ; all officials were ordered to aid him under pain 
of 1000 florins, he was authorized to summon the Moris- 
cos to listen to him and to impose penalties on the disobe- 
dient.^ Another was the Observantine Bartolome de los 
Angeles^ who had been tried in 1529 and dismissed in 
disgrace on account of the scandals he caused. He was 
again furnished with the most ample credentials and 
powers and a list of 128 towns was furnished which he 

^ Janer, p. 235. '^ Fonseca, p. 20. 



IGNORANCE OF ARABIC. 149 

was to visit. At first Bishop Haro congratulated him on 
his success^ although the priests were not helping him — 
though in many places there were none of the latter in 
consequence of the danger to which they w^ere exposed. 
As early as 1544^ however^ charges were brought against 
him of associating with the Moriscos and using his mission 
as a source of gain. Still he was kept at the work until 
1548^ but his conduct seems to have become insufferable ; 
he was formally tried^ deprived of his functions and con- 
fined in a convent.^ 

The prolonged employment of so unworthy a mission- 
ary as Fray Bartolom6 is probably explicable by his 
familiarity with Arabic^ for^ incredible as it may seem^ 
the preachers as a rule were expected to convert popula- 
tions of whose tongue they were ignorant. In the agri- 
cultural villages^ where the bulk of the Moriscos resided^ 
knowledge of Castilian or Lemosin was a comparatively 
rare accomplishment and one possessed by very few 
women or children. When^ in 1564^ Philip II. awoke 
to the necessity of action and ordered a spasmodic effort 
to reform abuses and instruct the Moriscos^ the visitors 
who were sent to inspect the rectories were to carry with 
them money for liberal almsgiving and preachers who 
knew Arabic^ and Archbishop Martin de Ayala sought 
to aid by printing the catechism in Arabic — the first time 
this device had been thought of since Hernando de Tala- 
vera earned the rebuke of Ximenes by such a profanation.^ 
On the other hand^ St. Luis Bertran^ when called upon^ 
in 1579^ for suggestions by the Viceroy Duke of Najera^ 

1 Janer, pp. 228-41.— Dan vila, p. 130. 

^ Danvila, p. 169. — Archivo de Simancas, Inq^ de Valencia, Leg. 
205, fol. 3. 



1 50 CONVERSION B Y PERSUASION 

urged the importance of forcing the Moriscos to learn the 
vernacular so that they might understand the preachers — 
the girls should not be allowed to marry till they compre- 
hended the catechism and on feast-days in church there 
should be a fine imposed for each time that Arabic was 
spoken/ In 1695 Bishop Perez of Segorbe, in response 
to a demand for a report on the situation, included among 
his suggestions the employment of priests familiar with the 
language and he met the opposition to this by citing the 
examples of Talavera and Ayala.^ There appears about 
this time to have been considerable discussion of a pro- 
ject to establish a chair of Arabic in the University of 
Valencia. Those who advocated it urged that the Council 
of Vienne, in 1312, ordered Arabic to be taught in Rome, 
Bologna, Paris, Oxford and Salamanca ; that St. Ramon 
de Penaforfc had obtained from the Dominican General 
permission that friars should be instructed in it and that 
schools were opened in Murcia and Tunis with the aid of 
the kings of Castile and Aragon ; that the preachers thus 
trained had converted more than ten thousand Moors and 
that Gregory XIII. had established in Rome a press for 
printing in Hebrew, Greek, Latin and Arabic which the 
popes maintained at great expense. They further pointed 
out that, as the Moors believed the Koran to be the word of 
God, those who were unacquainted with it had no chance 
of winning them over, for they believed that if it were 
studied its truth would be recognized ; they also had 
many books in Arabic controverting Christianity and 
these could only be met by those who were familiar with 
the tongue and the dogmas of the Moors. All this seems 

^ Ximenez, Vida de Eibera, pp. 365-7. 
2 Archive de Simancas, he, ciL 



MINGLING THE RACES. 151 

too plain to admit of refutation^ but on the other hand it 
was argued that it would take too long ; besides there 
was Fray Juan de Puegentos with his disciples and many 
others who preached to them in Arabic without success, 
and further that in Aragon the Moriscos had nearly for- 
gotten their ancestral tongue while those of Castile had 
wholly abandoned it and they were as impenetrably heretic 
as those of Valencia. These arguments were successful, 
Philip decided against the professorship, and ordered that 
Morisco children should be taught the vernacular.^ There 
is a world of significance in the scorn with which Fray 
Bleda tells us that, in the junta of 1604, there were people 
who even urged that it would be serviceable if the 
preachers would learn Arabic.^ 

Another method, which seems based on common sense, 
was to bring about a fusion of the races by mingling them 
together. The Morerias, or separate quarters in the 
towns, divided by a wall under the legislation of Ferdi- 
nand and Isabella, still existed and the Moriscos thus 
dwelt apart from the Christians. If this could be broken 
up not only would they be exposed to Christian influences 
but it would be much easier to keep them under super- 
vision and punish them for backsliding. The earliest 
suggestion that I have met with as to this occurs in 1515, 
when the Inquisitor Enzinas, during a visit to Agreda, 
ordered that thirty or forty of the baptized Moriscos 
should live in the town and as many Old Christians be 
transferred to the Mota or Moreria. The municipal 
authorities appealed to Ferdinand, representing that to 
accomplish this the gate of the Mota would have to be 

1 Fonseca, pp. 346-60.— Danvila, p. 230. 
^ Bleda, Cronica, p. 883. 



152 CONVERSION B Y PERSUASION 

left open and another gate be opened so as to make a 
street connecting the quarters. This Ferdinand refused 
to sanction and suggested that those to be moved^ both 
New and Old Christians^ should be persons who have no 
houses of their own.^ During the baptismal process in 
Valencia the Inquisition took a different view and^ when 
the aljama of Albarracin was converted^ the inquisitors 
arbitrarily issued an edict forbidding all Moors to enter 
the city^ in order to prevent all intercourse between the 
unconverted and the neophytes. This worked great hard- 
ship on the citizens as it deprived them of the supplies 
which the Moors were accustomed to brings and as the 
city was a place of transit it prevented Moors from pass- 
ing through^ wherefore Charles^ March 4, 1526^ asked 
the inquisitors to relax their edict in so far as to allow 
travelling Moors to pass two days and nights inside the 
city wall^ but not to enter that of the Moreria.^ In 1528 
the cortes of Castile saw the unwisdom of keeping the 
races apart and petitioned that the Moors should be 
obliged to live among Christians to facilitate their con- 
version.^ 

On the other hand^ in this same year^ 1528^ the con- 
cordia between the Inquisition and the Moriscos of Va- 
lencia provided that the independent organizations of the 
latter in the royal cities^ such as Valencia^ Jativa^ Cas- 
tellon de la Plana^ etc.^ should be preserved/ but in 1529 

^ Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 3, fol. 427 ; Libro 927, 
fol. 276. 

2 Ibid. Libro 927, fol. 284. 

^ Colmeiro, Cortes de los antiguos Eeinos de Leon y de Castilla, II. 
155. 

* Danvila, p. 105. 



MINGLING THE RACES. 153 

Charles changed his policy ; he wrote to all the corregi- 
dores and Man ri que to all the inquisitors, ordering them 
to consult together and also with representatives of the 
Moriscos as to the best means of removing the latter from 
their barrios or Morerias, in order to facilitate their con- 
version without inflicting too great inconvenience and loss 
on them, and the result of these deliberations was to be 
submitted to the Suprema/ 

Like so much else in this unhappy business of perpetual 
consultations and non-action little or nothing came of this. 
It is true that Inquisitor-general Yaldes, in a letter to 
Charles V. November 5, 1549, says that the experiment 
had been tried in various places with happy results,^ but 
the almost insuperable difficulties attending it are seen in 
the attempt made in Yalladolid, where, in 1541, it had been 
proposed to tear down the wall of separation and throw open 
the barrio of the Moriscos. This involved the destruction 
of certain houses, the^value of which was appraised at 3000 
ducats and, in 1542, the city agreed to defray one-third, 
another third was to be obtained by assessing benefits on 
property that would be improved, while the Inquisition 
promised to furnish the other third out of fines to be im- 
posed on Moriscos coming in under an Edict of Grace. 
The matter then rested until 1549, when the work of 
demolition commenced, but the house owners resisted ; in 
the squabble two officials of the Inquisition were arrested 
by the alcaldes de corte (the court at that time was resid- 
ing in Valladolid) and for this insult the tribunal vainly 
clamored for satisfaction. The work was suspended in- 
definitely and when, October 8, 1549, Yaldes calmly 

^ Archivo de Simancas, loc. cit. fol. 277. 
2 Ibid. Libro 13, fol. 306. 



154 GON VERSION B Y PEES UASION, 

ordered that Old and New Christians should occupy 
alternate houses^ the Suprema replied to him November 
18th with a report of the whole affair. It also wrote to 
the emperor, then in Germany, November 7th and Decem- 
ber 23d. The position was simply that the Inquisition 
was asked to advance the whole 3000 ducats and take its 
chances of collecting the 2000. The Suprema declined ; it 
had not money enough to pay its salaries and if it should 
borrow the amount the prospects of recovery were too 
vague to justify the risk ; besides it demanded as a con- 
dition precedent satisfaction for the arrest of its officials.^ 
How the matter terminated we have no means of knowing, 
but it is fairly safe to assume that the Moriscos were left 
undisturbed in their barrio until the final expulsion. In 
1572 Philip II. recurred to the idea and ordered the 
Moriscos to live among Old Christians in order that they 
could be watched and denounced to the Inquisition, but no 
attention seems to have been paid to the commands,^ and I 
have met with no trace of further efforts in this direction. 
In his letter of October 8, 1849, to the Inquisitors of 
Valladolid, Valdes made a valuable suggestion in the same 
line by ordering them to encourage intermarriage in every 
way ; the dower which a Morisca bride may bring to an 
Old Christian should never be subject to confiscation, and 
it should be the same with the property possessed by a 
Morisco at the time of his marriage with a Christian.^ 
Unfortunately fanaticism could not endure such liberality ; 
in 1603 Archbishop Eibera boasted that he never granted 
licences for such marriages as the Christian spouse was 
apt to be perverted, and Bleda devotes a whole section to 

1 Ibid. Libro 4, fol. 183; Libro 79, fol. 43, 51. ^ Fonseca, p. 71. 
^ Archive de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 4, fol. 183. 



EFFOB TS AT INSTE UCTION, 1 55 

proving that they ought to be prohibited.^ Valdes further 
ordered that instructors should be appointed^ to teach the 
Moriscos and their children^ whose salaries should be paid 
in such wise as the inquisitors should determine. The 
question of payment was solved by the thrifty bishops of 
Valencia Avho sent doctrineros, or catechizers through 
their sees at wages of two reales per diem^ to be paid by 
the Moriscos in addition to all their other burdens of 
tithes and oblations.^ 

We have seen the fluctuating policy adopted with 
regard to confiscations and the occasional suspension of 
the Inquisition. This had the vice inherent in all uncer- 
tain lines of action^ for temporary leniency only increased 
exasperation when severity was resumed. Yet it was 
explicable by the hope persistently entertained that the 
perpetual efforts at so-called instruction would prove 
successful in spite -of the fact^ which should have been 
self-evident^ that the whole machinery^ however honestly 
devised^ was in the hands of those whose only object was 
to make what they could out of the oppressed race. The 
Spanish statesmen had a duty to perform of tremendous 
import and complexity and they earnestly sought to dis- 
charge it according to their imperfect lights, but their 
efforts were neutralized by the greedy and self-seeking 
hands to which the most delicate and responsible functions 
were of necessity confided. The extent of self-deception 
of which they were the victims is seen in the repeated 
efforts to gather in a harvest of true converts as the fruit 

^ Guadalajara j Xavierr, fol. 90. — Bledse Defensio Fidei, pp. 
359-63. 

^ Archive de Simancas, Inquisicion de Valencia, Leg. 205, fol. 3. 



1 56 CONVERSION B Y PERSUASION 

of the work which they supposed to be going on. To do 
this it was necessary to remit the penalties which the 
Church imposed on its erring children who sought to 
return to its bosom^ as we have seen tentatively essayed 
in the brief of Clement YII., June 16, 1525 (p. 17). 
A more regular method was through the Edicts of 
Grace, which specified a term during which the heretic 
and apostate could come forward, confess and be recon- 
ciled under lightened conditions. The Inquisition had 
power at all times to publish such edicts in the ordinary 
form, but something more was desirable in this case and 
a remarkable series of papal briefs was procured which 
manifest an earnest desire on the part of the government 
to win over the Moriscos, although the rulers were too 
blind to see that what they regarded as leniency was 
sufficiently deterrent to neutralize the attraction. 

The first of these briefs, granted by Clement VII., 
July 7, 1527, recited that the converts, through the 
absence of their bishops, the negligence of their priests 
and the lack of instruction, had relapsed into their errors ; 
that Charles, desirous to show mercy, had decided that 
apostates could, within a term to be named, confess secretly 
to persons deputed by Manrique and be absolved in 
utroqueforo, without public penance and without confis- 
cation, wherefore Clement confirms this and, for abundant 
caution, empowers priests appointed by Manrique and his 
successors to absolve in utroque foro even for crimes re- 
served to the Holy See, to impose salutary penance and 
to restore them to baptismal innocence.^ 



^ Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Libro II. fol. 67 (Arcliivo Hist. 
Nacional). 



PAEBON FOB RELAPSES, 157 

It was soon found^ however^ that something more than 
even this was required. The New Christians were apt to 
regard absolution^ whether thus obtained or through 
formal reconciliation or abjuration de vehementi in the 
Inquisition, as merely a licence to resume their old ways, 
thus committing the crime of relapse which was unpardon- 
able under the canon law. For the relapsed the Church 
had no mercy ; they might save their souls by craving 
readmission to her bosom and she did not deny them the 
sacraments, but their bodies w^ere irrevocably committed 
to the flames.^ The Inquisition had rightfully no power 
to remit this penalty and a specially delegated papal 
faculty was requisite to prevent the number of victims 
consigned to the stake from outweighing all the fair 
promises of benignity and moderation. The earliest dele- 
gation of this kind that I have met with occurs in a brief 
of Clement VII. December 2, 1530, empowering Man- 
rique, as long as he'is inquisitor-general, to appoint con- 
fessors with power to absolve penitents, even if they have 
relapsed repeatedly, with secret absolution and penance and 
to release them and their descendants from all penalties, 
disabilities and confiscations, the reason alleged for this 
mercy being the lack of priests in the Morisco districts to 
instruct the converts in the faith.'^ If, on Manrique^s 
death, this power was conferred on his successor Tavera, 



1 Cap. 4, 8, in Sexto, v. 2. 

2 Archive de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 926, fol. 57. — Balario de 
la Orden de Santiago, Libro 11. fol. 79. — It was not until 1535 that 
Manrique transmitted this to the inquisitors of Valencia, with orders to 
execute it (Ibid. fol. 80 j but it does not seem to have exercised much 
influence on the nnmber of burnings (p. 98). 



1 58 CONVERSION B Y PERSUASION 

the brief would seem not to have been preserved, and 
then followed the suspension, in 1546, of the operations 
of the Inquisition. At length, in 1556, Paul IV. con- 
ferred the same powers on Inquisitor-general Valdes 
which Pius IV. repeated in 1561,^ and we have seen 
(p. 102) that Valdes promptly delegated them to the Arch- 
bishop of Valencia and his ordinary. Then, in 1565, 
the briefs take a somewhat different shape. One of 
August 25th from Pius IV. to A^aldes recites that the 
latter had represented that dread of inquisitorial penal- 
ties led many to escape to Africa wherefore the pope 
authorizes him to publish a term of grace for a year, dur- 
ing which those who come forward and confess may be 
absolved, even if they have repeatedly relapsed, and 
moreover if those now absolved shall hereafter relapse 



1 Archive de Slmancas, Inquisiclon, Libro 926, fol. 49, 53. — Bulario 
de la Orden de Santiago, Libro III. fol. 51, 85. — Archivo de Alcala, 
Hacienda, Legajo 1049. 

In 1556, when an active effort was made in Aragon to win over the 
Moriscos and the inquisitors were ordered to visit the whole king- 
dom and proclaim an edict of grace, Valdes claims that under the brief 
he has all the powers of his predecessor Manrique. He points out how- 
ever that this only extends to relapsed converts and not to their de- 
scendants. Application for this will be made to Rome and until it 
comes such cases must be suspended. — Archivo de Simancas, Inquisi- 
cion, Libro 4, fol. 220-1. The briefs of 1556 and 1561 include de- 
scendants. 

There was the odor of lucre about this. An assessment was made 
on the Moriscos who took advantage of the grace and in three months 
8000 sueldos had been collected. The term was for six months, and 
on its expiration an extension of three months was granted for the 
benefit of those who should obligate themselves to pay the assessment 
imposed on them of the sum offered by the new converts for the main- 
tenance of the Holy Office.— Ibid. fol. 222, 



PARDON FOE RELAPSES. 159 

they can be reconciled without punishment^ even pecu- 
niary^ or relaxation^ or^ if it be thought best^ fines can be 
imposed for the ornamentation of their churches or for 
the Christian poor. Pius IV. died^ December 9th^ and 
his successor, Pius V., August 25, 1567, renewed the 
provision with the condition that the edict be published 
within six months, that it should give a term of not less 
than three years during which penitents could come in 
and that there should be no pecuniary penalties. Valdes, 
however, was now incapacitated by old age ; Espinosa 
was appointed as his deputy with the reversion of the 
office, and to him Pius repeated the brief, September 
6th/ 

Possibly questions may have arisen as to the interpre- 
tation of these faculties for the next brief, issued August 
6, 1574, to Inquisitor-general Quiroga, is more explicit. 
It recites that Quiroga had represented that there were 
Moriscos punished and reconciled by the Inquisition who 
yet, as rustics and imperfectly instructed, had relapsed 
and now ask for penance which cannot be granted with- 
out special licence, wherefore the pope authorizes him to 
empower the inquisitors to absolve them with secret or 
public abjuration and penance, and without confiscation 
or disabilities for themselves or their descendants. This 
was exceedingly liberal, as it imposed no limitation of 
time and might apply to prisoners on trial, but when it 
was repeated by Sixtus Y., January 25, 1588, to Quiroga 
it required him to publish a term of grace during which 

^ Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 926, fol. 63, 67. — Bulario 
de la Orden de Santiago, Libro III. fol, 88, 109. — iVrchivo de Alcala, 
Hacienda, Legajo 1049. 



160 CONVERSION B Y PERSUASION. 

it should operate and excluded all Avho were under arrest.^ 
When Clement YIII.^ May 31^ 1593 renewed the grant 
to Quiroga he limited its duration to three years and ex- 
tended its operation to prisoners on trial and after 
condemnation to relaxation or the galleys or exile or 
imprisonment^ all of which could be commuted to public 
or private penance^ not pecuniary ; confiscations could be 
restored to them and all disabilities for themselves and 
their descendants be removed. This was the most com- 
prehensive grant made as yet and before its expiration 
Philip II., in 1595^ applied for its extension^ which was 
doubtless granted.^ 

I have recited these briefs thus in detail because they 
are the most impressive evidence of a desire on the part 
of the government to mitigate the most odious feature of 
the canon law against heresy and to avoid driving the 
Moriscos to desperation. In themselves they made little 
difference in the situation. The edicts of grace^ with 
which they were mostly connected^ brought few or no 
penitents to come forward and denounce themselves and 
their kindred by confessions which were reduced to writ- 
ing and remained of record against all concerned. Never- 
theless it is a fact that during the latter half of the cen- 
tury the number of burnings fell off, while that of the 
trials, as we have seen, fluctuated with a tendency to 
increase.^ 



^ Archive de Simancas, Inquisiclon, Libro 926, fol. 59. — Bulario 
de la Orden de Santiago, Libro IV. fol. 24, 103. 

2 Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Libro IV. fol. 112. — Danvila, p. 
228. 

^ The number of burnings in Valencia as shovrn by the record (Ar- 
chive Hist. Nacional, Inqii de Valencia, Legajo 300) is as follows. It 



EFFORTS AT INSTRUCTION. 



161 



Forty years had elapsed since the portentous brief of 
Clement VII. ordered the enforced baptism of the 
Moriscos when^ in 1564^ the cortes of Monzon called 
the a^ttention of Philip II. to the failure of all the plans 
for instructing the converts^ who were punished for their 
ignorance. The work had still to be done and the cortes 
petitioned that 3000 ducats more should be appropriated 
from episcopal revenues for the endowment of rectories 
and churches which should be supervised watchfully by 
the episcopal Ordinaries and that the whole matter should 
be exclusively under the control of the bishops and arch- 
bishop. Philip promised to consult the inquisitor-gen- 
eral and in December a junta met under the presidency 
of Yaldes^ the conclusions of which were embodied in a 
royal cedula. The business of instruction was confided 
to the bishops in their respective dioceses^ who should 
appoint proper persons for that purpose and send commis- 
sioners to see to its performance. These were to treat the 
Moriscos with the utmost kindness^ to punish those who 
insulted them, to reward the good according to their 



will be borne 


J in mind that this register is incomplete 


and that an addi 


tion of about 25 per 


cent, should be allowed for. 






1544 


3 


1557 


none 


1570 


none 


1583 


5 


1545 


3 


1558 


none 


1571 


1 


1584 


2 


1546 


none 


1559 


none 


1572 


5 


1585 


none 


1547 


none 


1560 


none 


1573 


3 


1586 


5 


1548 


none 


1561 


none 


1574 


7 


1587 


none 


1549 


none 


1562 


none 


1575 


3 


1588 


none 


1550 


none 


1563 


6 


1576 


3 


1589 


none 


1551 


none 


1564 


5 


1577 


5 


1590 


4 


1552 


none 


1565 


none 


1578 


4 


1591 


none 


1553 


1 


1566 


3 


1579 


1 


1592 


10 


1554 


15 


1567 


4 


1580 


none 


1593 


5 


1555 


none 


1568 


2 


1581 


2 






1556 


none 


1569 


none 


1582 


none 







11 



162 CONVERSION BY PERSUASION 

deserts and the leading ones were to be made familiars of 
the Inquisition. The use of Arabic was forbidden and 
schools were to be established for teaching the vernacu- 
lar ; alguaziles and officials were to be appointed under 
the protection of the Inquisition ; the nobles who per- 
mitted their vassals to practise Moorish rites were to be 
punished. How little had yet been accomplished is seen 
in the clause ordering the mosques to be converted into 
churches and the books, trumpets and instruments to be 
removed. The baths in Valencia were to be placed in 
charge of Old Christians and no bathing was to be per- 
mitted on feast-days.^ 

The most striking feature in all this is its recognition 
that nothing had yet been done and that the work had 
to be commenced anew under different auspices. The 
conciliatory spirit manifested was admirable and might 
have proved effective, even at that late day, if the per- 
petual irritation of the Inquisition could have been sup- 
pressed and if the execution of the plan could have been 
confided to honest, zealous and capable hands. The spirit 
in which the bishops undertook the duties entrusted to 
them is seen in a provincial council assembled by Arch- 
bishop Ayala on his return from the junta. This body 
busied itself, not with plans for instructing the Moriscos 
and furnishing the necessary funds, but with imposing 
heavy fines on those who did not have their children 
baptized immediately at birth and in the best clothes 
they could furnish, on alfaquies who visited the sick and 
on secular officials who did not denounce any Moorish 
observances — even the Zambras and Leilas, or songs and 

^ Banvila, pp. 167-71.— Bledse Defensio Fidei, p. 192. 



EFFOR TS AT INSTR UCTION. 163 

performances customary in wedding festivities. The 
pious hope is expressed that by compelling them to attend 
church on Ash Wednesday, Maundy Thursday^ Good 
Friday and All Saints they may be attracted to Christian 
worship, and their salvation is cared for by ordering them 
when dying to instruct their heirs to give something for 
the benefit of their souls, in default of which the heirs 
must at least have three masses sung for them.^ 

The conciliatory policy confided to narrow-minded and 
greedy churchmen such as these was not likely to win 
over the Moriscos or to make much progress in their in- 
struction. We hear nothing of the 3000 ducats which 
the cortes of Monzon had considered essential for the 
dotation of rectories, and in 1570 the Suprema, in sending 
de Soto Salazar as visitor to Valencia, instructed him to 
find out why nothing had as yet been done to carry out 
the plans of the junta of 1564.^ In 1567 Ayala had been 
succeeded by Loazesy who issued some new instructions 
framed in conjunction with the other bishops of the king- 
dom, but in a year the see was again vacant and was filled 
by Juan de Ribera, Patriarch of Antioch, who held it for 
forty-three years and was an efficient agent in the final 
catastrophe — a service tardily recognized by his beatifica- 
tion in 1796. We are told that he addressed himself 
earnestly to the work ; heedless of comfort, and of safety, 
he personally visited every part of his extensive and rugged 
see, many portions of which had never seen a prelate ; 
he disputed with the alfaquies and made himself familiar 
with the necessities of the situation. In a long memorial 

1 Aguirre Concil. Hispan. V. 415, 419, 432. 

^ Archive de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 13, fol. 371 



1 G4 CONVERSION B Y FEES UASION 

addressed to Philip he deplored the deficiency of churches 
and rectors owing to the inadequate salaries paid, which 
was the chief cause of the long ill-success in the conver- 
sion. He had built churches and increased salaries ; he 
had promised the Moriscos a suspension of the Inquisition^ 
and if, after all this preparation, nothing is done they will 
be more obstinate than ever. Spiritual remedies must be 
accompanied with temporal pressure, and this he asked 
the king to apply and also to order the Bishops of Ori- 
huela, Tortosa and Segorbe to co-operate, for thus far 
they had done nothing.^ That Ribera's Avell-meant 
efforts should have proved useless is perhaps explained 
by the account given by a well-informed contemporary, 
who tells us that he held a meeting with the bishops of 
Orihuela and Tortosa (the see of Segorbe was vacant from 
1575 to 1578) who resolved that the stipends of the rec- 
tors were insufficient, as there were no offerings at the 
altar, wherefore many abandoned their positions and it 
was necessary to take whomsoever could be got, who were 
mostly ignorant and of indifferent character. It was 
therefore resolved to increase the number of churches and 
raise the salary to a hundred crowns, which was duly 
confirmed by the pope. The king contributed three 
thousand ducats a year, besides the pension levied on the 
archbishopric, but so many difficulties sprang up that the 
salaries were not raised and the revenue accumulated 

^ Ximenez, Vida de Juan de Eibera, pp. 61-2, 347-52. 

The winning character of Ribera's missionary work is illustrated by 
a prophecy attributed to one of his preachers, the Bishop of Sidonia, 
in a sermon on April 14, 1578, the natal day of Philip III. — ''Since 
you will not eradicate from your hardened hearts this infernal and 
cursed sect of Mahomet, know that to-day is born the prince who will 
drive you from Spain." — Guadalajara y Xavierr, fol. 60. 



EFFOR TS AT INSTR UCTION. 165 

greatly, so that eventually 60,000 ducats were taken to 
increase the income of the college for Moriscos in Valen- 
cia and 40,000 for a ne^y seminary for women and chil- 
dren.^ As usual, the money question dominated and the 
mission-w^ork came to naught. 

If the oblations at the altar were lacking the priests 
had another mode of increasing their stipends which w^as 
the source of great discontent. The council of Toledo 
in 1582 instructs all priests to make lists of their Morisco 
parishioners over five years of age ; on every Sunday and 
feast-day he is to call this roll and fine all absentees, 
dividing the result between himself, the sacristan and the 
fabric of the Church.^ In 1584 the Venetian envoy 
Gradenigo says that they prefer to pay rather than attend 
church, which may have been the case with the well-to- 
do, but Leonardo Donato attributes the rebellion of 
Granada largely to this and the other vexations inflicted 
on them by their priests, not from religious zeal but from 
greed. -^ 

Still the endless ineffectual work went on. In 1586 
Philip resolved on another effort to convert the converts 
and as usual he called a junta to devise the means. This 
and a successor met and deliberated and recommended 
that resolutions adopted in 1573 should be put into exe- 
cution. There Avas a bustle of consultation with the 
bishops and viceroy of Valencia, public prayers were 



^ Fonseca, p. 28. 

2 Concil. Toletan. ann. 1582, Deer. 48 (Aguirre, VI. 14). 

3 Eelazioni Venete, Serie I. Tom. V. p. 392; Tom. VI. p. 408.— 
Archbishop Ayala endeavored to suppress the observance of the Kama- 
dan and other Moorish fasts by ordering the secular officials to watch 
for it and fine all delinquents two crowns. — Fonseca, p. 54. 



166 CONVERSION B Y PEES UASION 

ordered for the success of the attempt and, in a final con- 
sulta of January 30, 1588, Philip was advised that rectors 
should be provided for all the Morisco villages, that 
endowments for them should be had from the episcopal 
and capitular revenues and from the tithes of the villages, 
that the business of instruction should be pushed and in 
order that this might have a better chance, that a papal 
brief for an edict of grace be procured.^ We have seen 
that Sixtus V. and Clement VIII. made no difficulty in 
granting the amplest faculties of pardon, but when it came 
to action the customary paralysis benumbed the effort and 
nothing was accomplished. 

In 1595, Philip convened another junta to continue the 
consideration of the eternal question as to the instruction 
of the Moriscos. It was doubtless for the enlightenment 
of this body that reports were called for from the Valen- 
cian bishops, of which that of the learned Juan Bautista 
Perez, Bishop of Segorbe, reviews the whole question 
thoroughly and says the more he thinks of it the more 
difficulties it presents, for all efforts thus far have been 
fruitless. He enumerates fifteen impediments to the 
conversion of the Moriscos— their ignorance, deceit and 
fanatic obstinacy, their living apart and by themselves, 
their ignorance of the vernacular, the tradition of the vio- 
lent baptism of their forefathers, their fear of the Inquisi- 
tion and its punishments which make them hate religion, 

^ Danvila, pp. 214-16. — Fonseca, p. 32. 

Bishop Perez of Segorbe explains that Eibera sought to raise the 
salaries of the rectors to 100 crowns by a pension on his table and the 
tithes of the canonries and of the lords, but though this was confirmed 
by the pope at the request of the king, it never took effect, owing to 
the appeals interjected. — Archivo de Simancas, Inqn de Valencia, 
Leg. 205, fol. 3. 



i 



INSUFFICIENCY OF STIPENDS. 167 

the fact that when some really wish to be converted and 
confess the priest cannot absolve them^ as heresy is 
reserved to the inquisitors to whom nothing will induce 
them to go^ the favor shown to them by the nobles for 
the heavy imposts they pay^ and lastly^ if the truth must 
be told^ there are not enough rectors who can reside and 
instruct them^ for they only go on Sundays and feast- 
days. The salary ought to be 100 ducats and a house^ 
and power should be obtained from the pope to effect this 
summarily and without appeal from the parties affected. 
The poverty of the rectories arises from the tithes having 
been given to the lords and to canons and other digni- 
taries of the churches. Then some monasteries^ which had 
acquired the revenues of many of them^ obtained in 1567 
from Pius V, a motu proprio fixing at fifty crowns a year 
the portio congrua which they were obliged to leave to 
the rectories ;^ and in this they included all uncertain 
emoluments. Onlj^ ignorant priests would accept this 
beggarly stipend and these could not reside ; some of 
them brought suits against the canons and others^ but 
ecclesiastical suits are interminable. The bishops cannot 
compel them to residence, knowing that they cannot live 
on the stipend. The Moriscos never summon them, even 
when dying, although there is a penalty for dying without 
a priest, for they always prove by witnesses that the death 
was sudden. There are many wise men, he adds, who 
hold that the failure to instruct the Moriscos is only a 
question of money. The colleges founded in Valencia 
and Tortosa have had no result ; only three or four per- 

^ This is the bull Ad exequendum, Nov. 25, 1567 (Bullar. Koman. 
11. 259). It names from 50 to 100 crowns a year as the jportio congrua, 
and the monasteries naturally took the benefit of the minimum. 



168 CONVERSION B Y PERSUASION 

sons of consideration have issued from that of Valencia 
and they have preferred to live in the city on their bene- 
fices rather than to preach among their people ; the rest 
return home to labor and presumably are as much Moors 
as before.^ 

Such was the condition of the Morisco question after 
seventy years of strivings in which the designs^ more or 
less sagacious^ of the rulers had been wrecked by the 
supineness^ the greed and the corruption of those whose 
duty it was to save the hundreds of thousands of souls 
confided to their charge, to say nothing of the overwhelm- 
ing political interests involved. Bishop Perez may be 
taken as an unexceptionable witness, for he was not only a 
remarkably intelligent prelate — as shoAvn by his exposure 
of the forgeries of the plomos del Saoro Monte — but he 
was by no means inclined to favor the Moriscos and did 
not hesitate to recommend greater severity on the part of 
the Inquisition and to suggest expulsion if all other means 
failed. 

Politically the question was becoming year by year 
more pressing as the alternative of real conversion or of 
expulsion presented itself ever more strongly to Spanish 
statesmen as inevitable. During the whole of 1595 and 
a great part of 1596 a junta sat, engaged in interminable 
debates and submitting conflicting opinions to the king, 
according to the fashion in which Philip carried on his 

^ Archivo de Simancas, Inqn de Valencia, Leg. 205, fol. 3. 

A similar report was presented by Bishop Esteban of Orihuela. He 
recommends a reduction of the exactions of the lords, greater activity 
by the prelates and priests, the establishment of schools, greater restric- 
tions and disabilities on the Moriscos and then, if within a given term 
they were not converted, they should all be reduced to slavery and be 
scattered throughout Spain. — Danvila, p. 229. 



PLANS FOR INSTRUCTION. 169 

government. On December 20th petitions were dis- 
cussed^ presented by the aljamas^ complaining that they 
were not instructed owing to the negligence of the prel- 
ates and rectors and asking that proper persons be sent^ 
the existing ones being simple ignorant clerics^ mostly 
foreigners and Frenchmen. This was promptly followed^ 
December 24th^ by a royal decree ordering Archbishop 
Ribera to j&ll the rectories at once with the best appointees 
he could find and that the Bishops of Segorbe^ Tortosa 
and Orihuela should immediately erect and endow the 
rectories in their dioceses so that the work of instruction 
might commence promptly and preachers be sent through 
all the bishoprics — provisions the importance of which 
consists in the evidence they give of how little rational 
work had been done in christianizing the Moriscos since 
the edict of 1525.' 

Interminable debatea followed as to whether the matter 
should be entrusted to one supreme commissioner or 
whether each bishopric should have its own^ and what 
should be their functions and powers ; also as to the 
sources from which the dotations of the rectories and the 
pay of the preachers should be draAvn^ together with 
numeroms other details. Everybody had a different 
opinion and the king, in place of deciding, asked to be 
advised about the respective opinions — a perfectly finished 
example of the most elaborate methods which human wit 
has devised of how not to do it.^ The wearied old mon- 

1 Dan Vila, pp. 230-1. 

2 This perpetual discussion and irresolution was not the least of the 
causes contributing to the decay of the Spanish monarchy. Intro- 
duced by Philip II., it continued to the last of the Hapsburgs ; the 
diminishing resources of the nation were frittered away for lack of 
vigorous action at critical moments by a government combining the 



170 CONVERSION BY PERSUASION 

arch was breaking down; he died^ September 13^ 1598^ 
busy to the last with plans to pay for the rectories out 
of the balance of the funds which had been accumulating 
for twenty years and with endeavoring to persuade Clem- 
ent VIII. to reconsider his refusal of a brief which should 
exempt the Moriscos from the obligation to denounce their 
accomplices^ for without this there could be no hope of 
voluntary conversions.^ As we have seen^ no priest could 
absolve for heresy and admit to reconciliation^ while to the 
inquisitor a confession was fictitious and invalid which 
did not contain full information about all the heretics 
known to the convert. The rules of the Church de- 
manded this, however impassable was the obstacle which 
it erected in the path of the returning sinner. It is true 
that, at the request of the king, Clement had granted, 
February 28, 1597, an edict of grace covering relapse, and 
had conceded that confession could be made to the episco- 
pal Ordinaries, but he had insisted that the confession must 
include full denunciation of the apostasy of others.^ 

peculiar and seemingly irreconcilable vices of autocracy and bureauc- 
racy. It is well described by a contemporary — '' Con semejante lentitud 
se desatendio siempre en todo el gobierno de Phelipe segundo a las 
mayores urgencias, empleando el tiempo que debiera lograrse en pre- 
venir los peligros para evitarles con providencia en consultas prolixas 
y en informes inutiles, no creyendo nunca a quien los prevenia, aumen- 
tando los gastos despues la morosidad de sus resoluciones." — Historia 
de laCasade Mondejar ( Morel-Fatio, L'Espagne au XVP et au XVIP 
SiMe, p. 69). 

These perpetual delays were the despair of the foreign diplomats at the 
Spanish court. See the despatch of the Nuncio Sega, March 1, 1578, in 
Hinojosa, Los Despachos de la Diplomacia Poniificiaj 1. 243 (Madrid, 
1896). 

1 Danvila, p. 232. 

^ Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Libro IV. fol. 128. — Archivo de 
Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 926, fol. 71. (See Appendix No. IX.) 



FURTHER EFFORTS TO INSTRUCT. 171 

The Junta^ which by this time was a virtually per- 
petual body^ though with varying membership^ and in 
full control of the Morisco question^ continued to report 
to Rome that the trouble arose from the avarice of the 
bishops and the evil example of the priests^ and that the 
Moriscos sinned because there was no one to instruct 
them/ Archbishop Ribera, in 1602^ argued on the other 
hand that it was because they were determined not to 
learn^ in support of which he adduced the evidence of 
the inquisitors who would keep them in prison for two 
or three years^ teaching them on every feast-day^ yet 
they would be discharged without knowing a word of 
Christian doctrine^ and he tells us that the aljamas pub- 
licly reprehended their syndics at the court for asking 
for a term of delay in which they could be instructed.^ 

Stilly whatever were his convictions^ Ribera had not re- 
fused his co-operation in another vigorously futile attempt 
to instruct and convert^ with which Philip III. inaugu- 
rated his reign. A new edict of grace had been applied 
for from Clement^ and in preparation for it^ in 1599^ 
Ribera held in Valencia a provincial council^ at which 
assisted the royal confessor^ Gaspar de Cordova^ and the 
Licentiate Sebastian de Covarrubias, for the purpose of 
organizing instruction^ which was to commence forth- 
with. Rectors and preachers were to be appointed and 
money provided to pay for them^ the catechism was to 
be printed^ the inquisitors were to name commissioners 
and the barons were to found schools with teachers where 
all children between 7 and 12 were to be taught ; Ribera 
was to borrow 60^000 ducats for the college of Valencia 

^ Bleda, Cronica, p. 882. ^ Ximenez, Vida de Ribera, p. 386. 



172 CONVERSION B Y PERSUASION. 

and the viceroys and their wives were to take charge of 
a hermandad or confraternity to place the daughters of 
Moriscds in convents and houses of Old Christians.^ All 
the work which had been so fruitlessly attempted so many 
times was commenced anew as if nothing had yet been 
tried. 

The eagerly expected papal brief was duly received, 
addressed as usual to the inquisitor-general and the 
subdelegation of his powers was necessarily made to the 
Valencian inquisitors. August 6^ 1599, Philip III. 
forwarded to them these powers in a letter in which he 
congratulated himself that the labors and expenditure 
of his father and his own have at last borne fruit in in- 
structing the converts ; the great difficulties were over- 
come and nothing more was needed but the publication 
of the edict and the appointment of commissioners in 
each of the dioceses. The edict was only a repetition of 
those which we have seen so repeatedly issued with such 
nullity of result. It granted only the term of one year, it 
excepted those who were under arrest, it gave power to 
absolve for relapse, and though it exempted from all 
punishment those who voluntarily came forward and 
confessed, it required the confession to include all those 
of whose errors the penitent was cognizant. It was duly 
published August 2 2d in the cathedral of Valencia, and 
on April 28, 1600, in view of the approaching expiration 
of the term. Inquisitor-general Guevara extended it to 
February 28, 1601. Philip awaited the result and on 

^ Danvila, p. 241. For Kibera's instructions to the priests and 
preachers, see Ximenez, pp. 352-64. He is emphatic in ordering 
them to make it clear to the Moriscos that they cannot evade de- 
nouncing their accomplices to the Inquisition (p. 360). 



FAILURE OF EDICT OF GRACE, 173 

July 24tli and 27th he wrote to the inquisitors of Valen- 
cia for a report and an opinion as to the advisability of 
applying to the pope for an extension of the term. Au- 
gust 22d the inquisitors replied. During the eighteen 
months of the edict^ they said^ only thirteen persons had 
presented themselves to take advantage of it and these 
had made such fallacious confessions and had so pro- 
tected their accomplices that they deserved condemnation 
rather than absolution ; some of them had already been 
denounced to the Inquisition^ so that they evidently 
came from fear rather than from conversion. On the 
general mass the effect had been that they regarded it 
as giving licence to sin with liberty and scandal^ fasting 
the Ramadan without pretence of concealment. The 
experience of this tribunal had long been, and was now 
more than ever, that few or none of those reconciled told 
the truth or were converted in heart. Their lords and 
their priests and all who have converse with them say 
that they are and always will be Moors if God does not 
enlighten them with special mercy ; they do not desire 
instruction ; if they go to mass, it is only to escape the 
penalty of absence and when there they behave carelessly 
and contemptuously and turn away their eyes at the ele- 
vation of the host. Therefore there is no result to be 
expected from the royal mercy, and if the Inquisition 
does not convert them it at least forces them to act with 
less publicity and thus diminishes the evil which they do 
to Christians.^ If the Edict of Grace had been a failure 

^ Archive Hist. Nacional, Inq^ de Valencia, Legajo 5, fol. 185, 186, 
220, 295, 297-99. (See Appendix No. X.)— Bledse Defensio Fidei, 
p. 468. 

It was customarily said that but one person came forward to claim 



174 CONVERSION B Y PEES UASION 

this was not for lack of inquisitorial industry on those 
who hesitated to avail themselves of it^ for a record of 
the tribunal of Valencia from January^ 1598, to Decem- 
ber^ 1602, shows that out of a total of 392 cases, 194 
were of Moriscos.^ 

This hopeless view of the situation taken by the in- 
quisitors was confirmed by the reports of the bishops, 
who expatiated at length on the earnest zeal of their 
labors and their liberal expenditure in the endeavor to 
render the edict of grace effective. All concurred in 
stating that nothing had been accomplished and Ribera 
towards the end of 1601 and beginning of 1602 addressed 
to Philip two vigorous memorials to prove that the evil 
was irremediable without the most decisive measures.^ 



the benefit of the edict (Danvila, p. 242) which was epigrammatic but 
not exact. 

1 Ibid. Legajo 99.— From June 30, 1602, to September 5, 1604, there 
were but 30 cases in all, of which 17 were of Moriscos. — Ibid. Legajo 
2, MS. 7. 

In comparison with all this active work in Valencia it is worthy of 
remark that, in 1597, Inquisitor Heredia of Barcelona made a visitation 
of the province of Tarragona and parts of the sees of Barcelona, Vich 
and Urgel. His report of his labors inchides eighty-eight cases, among 
which there is but a single one of a Morisco and with him it was for 
going to Algiers in a Moorish vessel. — Archivo de Simancas, Inqui- 
sicion, Visitas de Barcelona, Leg. 15, fol. 4. 

^ Fonseca, pp. 35-9. — Ximenez, Vida de Kibera, pp. 367, 376. 

Bleda says (Defensio Fidei, pp. 96-7) that the bishops of Orihuela 
and Segorbe were at first deceived by the professed readiness for con- 
version of the Moriscos and their letters greatly encouraged Philip, but 
they subsequently learned the truth. The Bishop of Segorbe, he tells 
us, was particularly won by the zeal of a convert named Miguel Xavari 
and proposed to admit him to communion on Corpus Christi day, which 
falls on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, but his chapter persuaded 
him to defer it. The next day (Friday) one of his officials chanced to 
visit the convert's house and found six or eight ollas cooking enough 



BENE WED EFFORTS, 175 

Doubtless it was so by this time. For seventy years every- 
thing had been done to render Christianity odious and its 
ministers hated or despised. The most solemn promises 
had been violated in the name of religion and under its 
cloak for generations the Moriscos had known only per- 
secution and oppression. It is one of the mysteries of 
human intelligence that men^ learned^ acute, and trained 
in philosophy and statecraft could be so blinded by their 
conviction of laboring in the cause of God that they per- 
sistently threw the blame on .the Moriscos for perversity, 
obstinacy and hardness of heart. Ribera had a glim- 
mering of this when, in his instructions to the preachers 
whom he sent out, he told them that the task was diffi- 
cult but not impossible, for they had to deal with people 
who hated them for the difference of race, for the per- 
petual discord between Moors and Christians, and for the 
lack of charity with which they were treated, so that it is 
a proverb among them that they are regarded as slaves ; 
besides, they are hardened in the heresy which they have 
inherited from their forefathers. But Ribera cannot re- 
sist adding an allusion to the Devil who seeks to render 
it impossible for them to learn Christianity, and it does 
not occur to him to couple the Inquisition with Satan as 
an efficient agent. ^ 

In spite of this discouragement, Philip made a new 
effort along the old lines. In 1604 the cortes of Valen- 
cia demanded that the fifty-five rectories still lacking of 

meat for the whole aljama ; he summoned the people and on ransack- 
ing the house some eight or ten volumes of the Koran were discovered 
in a locked chest. Miguel was the alfaqui of the place ; he escaped 
and went to Mecca. 

^ Ximenez, Yida de Ribera, pp. 356-7. 



176 CONVERSION BY PERSUASION. 

the 129 decreed in 1572 should be endowed. Philip 
sent Canon Francisco de Quesada as a special agent to 
Rome where he obtained from Paul V. a brief^ March 6, 
1606, revoking three letters of Clement VIII. and con- 
firming one of Gregory XIII. in favor of 190 rectories 
in the archbishopric^ of twenty in Segorbe^ of twenty in 
Tortosa and of eleven in Orihuela. The chapters were 
required by the pope^ against their previous refusal^ to grant 
pensions on the tithes^ and rectors were to be sent to all 
the Moorish villages. Ribera^ we are told^ had always 
paid his cjuota ; the Bishop of Tortosa now agreed to 
furnish 400 ducats a year for the support of the new 
rectories and the Bishop of Segorbe promised to do his 
share but questions arose which prevented a settlement. 
The money difficulty, which had from the beginning been 
the impediment to the carrying out of all plans, seemed 
at last to be reaching a solution. To render these exer- 
tions effective Philip instructed Quesada to procure a 
brief ordering the Valencian bishops to meet in consulta- 
tion. It was dated May 11, 1606, and required Ribera 
to assemble his colleagues and discuss the best means of 
conversion and report their conclusions to him, and it 
especially urged the importance of providing endowments 
for the churches and seminaries, a matter which was repre- 
sented as the chief object of the conference in the letters 
addressed to the several bishops. It was not however 
until April 6, 1608, that Philip forw^arded these briefs 
to the bishops, who did not assemble until October, 
when they spent four months in deliberations, the result 
of which they duly forwarded to the king, being princi- 
pally that a new edict of grace should be procured during 
which instruction should be carried on, and the Inquisi- 



INSTRUCTION AS A BLIND. 177 

tion be suspended^ the money question being prudently 
evaded.^ It mattered little what their conclusions were. 
The anxieties of the rulers of Spain were growing too acute 
to permit much longer delay^ and^ as the all-powerful 
Duke of Lerma said^ instruction was useless but it must 
be kept up in order to blind the Moriscos to the prepa- 
rations for sterner measures which were in progress.^ 

To appreciate those anxieties it is necessary for us to 
take a glance at the secular aspects of the Morisco ques- 
tion and the position which the New Christians occupied 
amid the surrounding populations. 

^ Danvila, pp. 263-4, 270-1. —Fonseca, pp. 39-50.— -Bleda, Cronica, 
p. 975. 

2 Danvila, p. 283. 



12 



CHAPTER yil. 

THE co:n^dition of tpie moriscos. 

It was not only in matters of religion that the Moriscos 
had legitimate cause of discontent. In their relations with 
their Christian neighbors they were the objects of oppres- 
sion and injustice^ which created an enduring sense of 
wrong J rendering their fidelity suspect and leading to harsh 
measures of repression which increased their disaffection. 
The blundering policy of Spain moved in a vicious circle^ 
ever aggravating the diiSculties of the situation until the 
statesmanship of the age could find no outlet from it save 
self -destructive violence. 

In the older time^ as we have seen^ there had been no 
necessary antagonism between the races^ even when the 
Mudejares were allowed peaceably to follow their ancestral 
faith^ but with the development of Christian fanaticism 
there came a change which led the Spaniard to treat the 
Morisco with the galling contempt which Bishop Guevara 
deprecated and which inevitably was repaid with hatred. So 
little respect had been shown by the rulers to plighted faith, 
where the Moriscos were concerned, that this contempt 
not unnaturally led the people to regard them as entitled 
to no protection from the law and as subject to arbitrary 
abuse and oppression. The relations between the races 
are illustrated by a trouble which arose in Aragon in 1585. 
Pedro Perez, a native of Sandinies in the Valle de Terra — 



ANTAGONISM OF THE RACES. 179 

one of the most remote and rugged in the Pyrenees — in the 
winter of 1584-5 drove his cattle to pasture in the valley 
of the TaguS; not far south of Saragossa. In some quarrel 
he was slain by the Moriscos of Codo^ whereupon his 
nephew^ Antonio Marton^ an infanzon or gentleman of 
Salient, resolved to avenge him, in spite of the dissuasion 
of his friends, among whom was Lanuza the narrator of 
the event. He and his comrades believed that the killing 
of Moriscos was a most acceptable service to God and 
that if they perished in the attempt their souls would be 
a grateful offering to the Creator. Marton, with four 
companions, stationed himself before sunrise at the gate 
of Codo and when the Moriscos came forth to their daily 
labor they were set upon, five or six being killed while 
the rest fled back to the town and barred themselves in, 
and the Montaiieses returned home in triumph. Some 
days later Marton came back with a force of twenty-five 
men ; they concealed themselves in a valley and attacked 
the Moriscos who came to work in the fields, but found 
them armed and watchful ; a skirmish ensued in which 
some fifteen Moriscos and one Christian were killed and 
Marton had five wounds. The Montaiieses continued to 
despatch all the Moriscos they could find ; the latter 
formed an organization, known as the '' Conjuracion ^^ or 
" Moros de la venganza,^^ and murdered Christians wher- 
ever they could — on one occasion, between la Almunia 
and la Muela they slew fifteen, including two frailes who 
were peaceably travelling from Calatayud to Saragossa. 
The whole kingdom was disturbed, homicides were fre- 
quent and the high-roads were full of dangers. This 
went on for several years till, in 1588, the Montaiieses 
assembled in force and descended upon Codo, which they 



180 THE CONDITION OF THE MORISCOS. 

utterly destroyed ; then turning upon Pina^ where there 
was a mixed population^ the houses of the Old Christians 
were spared^ but those of the Moriscos were levelled ; 
they massacred without sparing age or sex and it was 
reckoned that the slaughter amounted to seven hundred 
souls. There was talk of making an end with all the 
Moriscos of Aragon, but the catastrophe of Codo and 
Pina at length aroused the authorities. Forces were 
raised and garrisons placed in Benasque^ Balbastro and 
other places and the crusading zeal of the Montaneses was 
curbed. The next thing was to break up the Morisco 
" Conjuracion/^ which had its headquarters in Pleytas^ a 
town near Saragossa. Alonso Celso^ the deputy -governor 
of Aragon^ on the night of January 30, 1589^ quietly 
surrounded Pleytas and ordered the gates opened in the 
name of the king. The Moriscos refused and rang their 
bells for assistance^ as agreed upon in the Conjuracion^ 
but Celso forced the gates, losing a few men wounded, 
and by threats of fire and sword compelled surrender. 
He tore down some houses of the most guilty and carried 
off twenty-nine men, together with three who had come 
in response to the call for aid. The twenty-nine were 
garrotted and the three were discharged at the instance 
of the Justicia of Aragon^ whose vassals they were, while 
two leaders who had escaped were subsequently captured 
and executed. Perhaps the most characteristic feature of 
the affair was that the Montaneses felt remorse for Avhat 
they had done and voluntarily came to Saragossa and 
surrendered themselves. Marton was put to death and 
his comrades were pardoned on condition of serving in 
the army of Italy, but the factions which had been 



MURDER OF CHRISTIANS, 181 

formed long continued to disturb the peace of the king- 
dom.^ 

That^ under such circumstances, the Moriscos made re- 
prisals when they safely could may well be believed, 
though we may reasonably reject the stories told by the 
ecclesiastical writers to excite abhorrence — that they were 
taught by their alfaquies to slay Christians whenever they 
could Avithout risk, that they became pastry-cooks in order 
to poison their customers and physicians in order to de- 
spatch their patients. Bleda relates that, during the four 
years in which he was in the baronies of the Duke of 
Infantado teaching the Moriscos, a friend of his among 
them, named Juan Vleyme, seemed one day much dis- 
turbed because the aljama had ordered him to rent the 
ferry-boat. On being asked what was the rent he said 
he did not care whether he made or lost money but he 
disliked the duty imposed on the ferry-man, which was 
to kill all the Christians who employed him when he 
could do so without being discovered ; that a spade was 
kept in the boat with which the passenger was knocked 
on the head from behind and then buried in the sand. 
Not content with assassination, it Avas said that the Moris- 
cos used to drink the blood of their victims and Bleda 
even goes so far as to assert that these murders sensibly 

^ Lanuza, Historias Ecclesiasticas y Seculares de Aragon, II. 90-97, 
139-45. 

It should be borne in mind that the right of private warfare seems 
still to have been one of the recognized privileges of Aragon. At this 
time there was a ferocious struggle going on for years between Hernando, 
Duke of Villahermosa and Count of Ribagorza, and his vassals of Riba- 
gorza, who were endeavoring to throw oJS' their subjection to him and 
there was no interference by the viceroy. — Ibid. 



182 THE CONDITION OF THE MOEISCOS, 

diminished the population of Spain^ already reduced by 
emigration and foreign wars. This martyrdom did not 
lack its Santo Niiio — a Santa Nina Catalina de Oliva^ 
martyrized November 26^ 1600^ with bestial cruelty.^ 

There is probably more reliance to be placed in the 
account we have of Hornachos, a town in the province 
of Badajos^ inhabited almost exclusively by Moriscos. 
They had bought from Philip 11.^ for 30,000 ducats, the 
privilege of bearing arms ; they had a regular organiza- 
tion and treasury and a mint for counterfeit money em- 
ploying thirteen operatives ; they robbed and murdered 
strangers passing through the town as well as all who 
informed against them or aided the Inquisition and by 
judicious bribery of the officials of the court they pro- 
tected the assassins when detected. At length the hidalgo 
Juan de Chaves Xaramillo denounced them to the king 
as confederating with the disaffected throughout the king- 
dom in preparation for a rising and in October, 1608, the 
licentiate Gregorio Lopez Madera, alcalde of the court, 
was sent there to investigate and punish. Alcaldes of 
the court sent on these errands were noted for the stern 
and speedy justice which they administered, and Madera 
justified this reputation. He made an inquest and found 
eighty-three dead bodies in the fields ; he hanged ten of 
the council of Hornachos and its executioner ; he sent a 
hundred and seventy to the galleys, scourged a large 
number, and left the place peaceful for the brief period 
which remained before it was depopulated by the expulsion.^ 

^ Bleda, Cronica, pp. 861-66 ; Defensio Fidei, p. 512. 
^ Bleda, Cronica, p. 921.-— Guadalajara j Xavierr, fol. 122-3. — 
Cabrera, Kelaciones, p. 355. 

In Castile, the chief complaint was as to those who had been deported 



HE A VY B URDENS. 183 

It was not^ however^ so much lawlessness w4tli which 
the Moriscos had to contend as with the laws and customs 
which deprived them of nearly all rights and reduced 
them to a condition akin to serfdom^ in flagrant disregard 
of faith pledged to them. Enforced conversion had 
added to their burdens and had brought no compensatory 
privileges — they were Christians as regarded duties and 
responsibilities and subjection to the Inquisition^ but re- 
mained Moors as respected liabilities and inequality be- 
fore the lav\^ When enforced conversion was decreed^ in 
1525^ we have seen (p. 85) that Charles V. solemnly 
promised them all the liberties of Christians, and in pur- 
suance of this the syndics of the aljamas represented 
that in order to enjoy their religion they had been sub- 
jected to many servitudes and imposts by their lords 
which as Christians they could not pay, as they would not 
be allow^ed to work on Sundays and feast-days, wherefore 
they asked to be ta:s:ed only as Christians. In the con- 
cordia of 1528 the answer to this was that they should 
be treated as Christians and to avoid injury to parties in- 
vestigation would be made to prevent injustice. It was 
ominous however that, in this same year 1528, the cortes 
of Valencia declared that the lords of Morisco vassals 
retained all their rights over the converts and forbade 
them to change their domiciles.^ The nobles made good 

from Granada after the rebellion. An official report of a commission 
appointed by the royal council states that, between 1577 and 1581, more 
than two hundred persons had been found murdered in the vicinity of 
populous cities such as Toledo, Alcala, Seville, etc., and it was proved 
that all this was the work of seven or eight bands. They had only 
commenced in 1577, by which time they had become acquainted with 
the country. — Janer, p. 272. 

^ Dormer, Lib. ii. cap. 1. — Danvila, pp. 101, 105. 

If there had been felt need of justification for the perpetual breaches 



184 THE CONDITION OF THE MORIS COS,- 

their claims^ although they had been allowed the tithes 
and first-fruits as a compensation^ and the Moriscos were 
powerless to resist. Charles seems to have felt himself 
equally impotent and had recourse to the pope in hopes 
that faculties granted to the Inquisition might enable that 
dreaded tribunal to enforce what he dared not attempt. 
Clement YII. responded^ July 15^ 1531^ in a brief which 
is perhaps the most remarkable of all that the Inquisition 
has ever received. It was addressed to Inquisitor-gen- 
eral Manrique and recited that when the Saracens were 
converted the barons and knights who held the converts 
as vassals, to recompense them for the loss inflicted on 
them by the conversion, were by apostolic authority em- 
powered to exact from them the tithes and first-fruits, but 
the nobles not only collect these but also extort the per- 
sonal services and a9ofras^ and other demands which were 
rendered prior to conversion, whence it arises that the 
converts, unable to endure these burdens, allege them as 
a reason for resorting to their old customs, eating flesh 
and disregarding the Christian feasts and ceremonies. 
As Charles had asked him for a remedy and as he had 
no knowledge of the matter he commissioned Manrique 

of faith pledged to the Moriscos it could have been found in the allega- 
tion that they were all constructively heretics and apostates and it was 
a recognized principle that faith was not to be kept with heretics if there 
were any valid reason for its violation. As Bishop Simancas says '^cum 
hsereticis nullum commercium nee pax uUa catholicis esse debet ; qua- 
mobrem fides illis data, etiam juramento firmata, contra publicum 
bonum, contra salutem animarum, contra jura divina et humana, nulla 
modo servanda est." — De Catholicis Institutionibus, Tit. xlvi. n. 53 
(Eomae, 1575). 

^ The zofres or zo/ras were imposts or excise paid by the Mud ej ares in 
addition to the division of crops. It remained a grievance to the last ; 
Ribera alludes to it twice (Ximenez, Vida de Ribera, pp. 362, 444). 



PROTECTION B Y THE INQ UISITION. 185 

to diligently inform himself and if he found the conver- 
sos unduly oppressed he was to order by papal authority 
the nobles to exact no more from their Morisco vassals 
than from the Old Christians on their lands and not to 
molest them under pain of excommunication and other 
penalties at his discretion. In case of disobedience he was 
to hear complaints and render justice^ for which full powers 
were granted to him^ and he was to enforce his decisions by 
censures^ invoking if necessary the secular arm.^ Under 
this^ when^ in January ^ 1534, Manrique sent Calcena and 
Haro to Valencia as commissioners to organize the Mor- 
isco churches, in his instructions he informed them that 
the king ordered the concordia to be enforced and that 
in all things the New Christians were to be treated like 
the Old and they were secretly to investigate and report 
whether this was the case.^ The role of protector in lieu 
of persecutor was a new one for the Inquisition ; there is 
no trace of its functions in this line and it doubtless held 
that Moriscos should prove themselves Christians before 
they were entitled to its aid. What prosecutions it un- 
dertook against their lords were for favoring their vassals, 
which meant endeavoring to prevent their being inter- 
fered with and disquieted for their apostasy. As little 
could they look for assistance from the cortes, where no 
measures were ever adopted for their relief ; the only 
effort was to increase their burdens and, in case of prose- 
cution, to profit by the confiscations.^ 

The lords, in fact, had been accustomed to get from 
their Moorish vassals double the imposts which they could 

^ Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Libro I. de copias, fol. 118. 
^ Archive de Simancas^ Inquisicion, Libro 77, fol. 227. 
^ Danvila, p. 141. 



186 THE CONDITION OF THE MORISCOS, 

exact from Christians and the declaration of the cortes of 
1528 showed their determination to adhere to this. The 
share of the produce of the land which they obtained 
varied from a third to a half ; in addition to this they 
secured the tithes and first-fruits and in time the Church 
put in its claim also to these and made it good. Be- 
sides these were the zofras and servitudes and forced loans 
and benevolences. There were fines for non-attendance 
at mass and licences for abstaining from wine and pork. 
They were terrorized by officials of the Inquisition into 
cultivating their lands gratuitously. In short they were 
defenceless and every one^ cleric and layman^ pillaged them 
systematically. Even their pitiless ecclesiastical enemies 
are almost moved to compassion in describing their mis- 
erable condition. Fray Bleda speaks of the ceaseless 
exactions with which they were ground to earthy and tells 
us that these were continually increasing^ so that the 
wretches could not endure them and were always plotting 
rebellion. Eibera finds fault with them for growing rich 
in spite of giving their lords a third of the crops together 
with the '' ordinary services ^^ and many arbitrary gifts 
and loans. Padre Fonseca says that they paid the tithes 
and first-fruits to the churchy but only in consequence of the 
great pressure and diligence employed by the rectors^ and 
he adds that it often happened that when the harvest came 
to be divided — one-half or one-third to the lord according 
to the custom of the place^ so much for the tithe and first- 
fruits and so much for the balance of old indebtedness, 
which they always had, the husbandman would return 
home with little or nothing of his crop. There was no 
compassion felt for this, he says, for it was generally 
deemed advisable to keep them impoverished and in 



VIRTUAL SERFDOM. 187 

subjection/ They were virtually taillables et corveables 
a merci and their oppression was only tempered by the 
ever-present apprehension of rebellion and^ in the mari- 
time districts^ by the facilities of escape to Africa. 

As far as possible moreover in Valencia and Granada 
they were reduced to the condition of predial serfs. A 
pragmatica of Charles Y.^ in 1541^ recites that they only 
changed their residence for the purpose of escaping to 
Barbary and if no one would receive them they could not 
do this. They were therefore forbidden^ under pain of 
death and confiscation^ from changing either domicile or 
lord and any one accepting them as vassals without spe- 
cial royal licence was fined five hundred florins or stripes 
in default of it. The same penalty^ with the addition of 
exile, was denounced for sheltering Granadan and Castil- 
ian Moriscos, who moreover were threatened with death 
and confiscation if they entered Valencia. This ferocious 
legislation was repeated, in 1545, with the inclusion of 
those of Aragon in the prohibition of entering Valencia, 
and similar edicts were issued in 1563 and 1586.^ 

As the muleteers and carriers were nearly all Moriscos 
these regulations exposed them to the most vexatious in- 
terference. In 1576, one of them named Miguel Fernan- 
dez, of Granada, complained to the king that, in his busi- 
ness of transporting goods to Cordova, Seville and other 
places, he was continually stopped and his freight seized, 

^ Sandoval, Libro xii. | xxviii. — Archive de Simancas, Inquisicion, 
Libro 922, fol. 15. — Coiicil. Tarraconens ann. 1591, Lib. in. Tit. 
xviii. cap. 2 (Aguirre, VI. 292).— Bleda, Cronica, p. 1030; Defensio 
Fidei, pp. 47, 51. — Ximenez, Vida de Ribera, pp. 362, 378. — Fonseca, 
p. 65. 

2 Danvila, pp. 128, 133, 211.— Boletin de la Eeal Acad, de la Hist. 
Abril, 1887, p. 288. 



188 THE CONDITION OF THE MO BIS COS. 

although he carried a passport^ and it is easy to conceive 
of the extortions thus practised by local officials^ but the 
only result of his petition was the issue of a royal order 
reminding the authorities of the regulation forbidding 
Granadan Moriscos to absent themselves for a single 
night from their abodes without a special licence for 
a limited time after furnishing due security^ the strict 
observance of which was enjoined. It may be added 
that this occupation of muleteering was regarded v/ith a 
jealous eye ; the muleteer was the carrier of news as well 
as of merchandise and the Moriscos were suspected of 
organizing in this way the treasonable conspiracies of 
which we hear so much and see so little.^ • 

They were not even allowed the poor privilege of 
expatriation^ especially to Barbary. We have seen 
(p. 41) with what stern penalties Ferdinand and Isa- 
bella forbade the emigration of their Granadan converts 
and this policy continued. Intercourse of every kind 
with Africa was subject to rigid limitations and seems to 
have been mixti fori — under jurisdiction both of the In- 
quisition and the secular authorities. In 1548 we find 
the Suprema permitting communication with Barbary for 
the redemption of captives^ while^ in 1553^ a royal prag- 
matica says that as emigration is increasing from all the 
coast districts it repeats the prohibition to go to Barbary 
without a licence from the Bayle general^ the fees for 
which amounted to 100 sueldos^ or five ducats.^ In 
1558 the Suprema^ in a letter of September 9th to Paul 

^ Janer, p. 247. — Ximenez, Vida de Eibera, p. 378. — Guadalajara y 
Xavierr, fol. 74. 

2 Archivo de Simancas, Inqii de Canarias, Exped^es de Visitas, Lib. 
III. fol, 15.— Danvila, pp. 142, 259, 



EMIGRATION FORBIDDEN, 189 

IV.^ says that the Inquisition has been much occupied in 
checking this movement.^ How effectually it sought to 
accomplish tliis is seen in the great Seville auto de fe of 
September 24^ 1559, where two Morisco apostates were 
burnt and among their crimes was enumerated that one 
had carried Moriscos to Barbary and the other had taken 
his wife and children there.^ It was not only to Bar- 
bary, however, that the Inquisition sought to prevent 
the escape of those whom it persecuted. In 1561 the 
Spanish ambassador at Venice repeated previous advices 
that many Moriscos of Valencia and Aragon were pass- 
ing to the Levant ; there were at that time more than 
thirty, some with their wives and children, awaiting 
passage and more were coming daily. They were ex- 
pecting others from Granada, urged by a merchant known 
in Constantinople as Abraham and in Granada as Her- 

^ Archive de Simancasy-Inquisicion, Libro 4, fol. 232. 

'^ A case illustrating the jealousy between the competing jurisdictions 
of the anomalous Spanish government occurred in 1562. Moriscos of 
Grranada, endeavoring to escape to Barbary, were put to death by the 
captain-general, but if the Inquisition chanced to have anything against 
them it was first to try them and, after it was done with them, return 
them to him for execution. A certain Luis Alboacen, on his way to 
Africa, was taken at Almufiecar, condemned to death by Tendilia and 
delivered to the Inquisition which sentenced him to relaxation as a 
negativo. Tendilia claimed him, but the tribunal refused to surrender 
him and appealed to the Suprema. Philip II. decided in its favor, be- 
cause it was better for the people to see him burnt for heresy, and 
ordered this course to be followed in future. — Bulario de la Orden de 
Santiago, Libro III. fol. 97. — Archive de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 
926, fol. 249. 

In 1593, however, the Suprema seems disposed to call upon the secu- 
lar arm when it asks why the royal officials do not punish Moriscos 
who after reconciliation pay a visit to Algiers. — Archive Hist. Nacional, 
Inqn de Valencia, Leg. 5 No. 2, fol. 372. 



1 90 THE CONDITION OF THE MOEISCOS. 

nando de Talavera. May 19^ 1561^ the Suprema for- 
warded this to the inquisitors of Saragossa and Valencia 
with orders to be vigilant and to put a stop to such evil 
business/ It was doubtless under this impulsion that 
the tribunal of Saragossa published edicts prohibiting 
Moriscos from leaving Aragon and Christians from guid- 
ing them over the Pyrenees^ and in the auto de fe of June 
6^ 1585^ it had the satisfaction of punishing four culprits — - 
two who had served as guides and two who were seeking 
to emigrate — with scourging and the galleys for three men 
and scourging with imprisonment and sanbenito for a 
woman.^ In time^ however, when expulsion was draw- 
ing near this vigilance was relaxed ; the Junta proposed^ 
June 24^ 1608^ to instruct the viceroy of Catalonia to 
watch the Moriscos who were going to France, to arrest 
those who were rich and influential in order to learn their 
intentions^ but to allow the rest to pass, for the fewer 
there were of them the better, as it was proposed to carry 
them all to Barbary.^ 

One of the sorest disabilities inflicted on the Moriscos 
was the deprivation of arms, for it was not only a humil- 
iation but it left them defenceless at a time when vio- 
lence was constant and to an Old Christian the blood 
of the despised race was little more than that of a 
dog. We have seen (p. 41) that in the pacification of 
Granada, in 1501, the population was disarmed and the 
possession of weapons was forbidden under the severest 
penalties. The Moriscos were skilful armorers and, like 

^ Archivo de Simancas, Libro 4, fol. 263. 

2 Biblioteca Nacional, Seccion de MSS. PV. 3 No. 20. 

3 Danvila, p. 269. 



DISARMAMENT, 191 

most other handicrafts^ this was largely in their hands. 
Under these circumstances the continued enforcement of 
such a law was difficult, and the repetition of the edict, in 
1511 and again in 1515, shows how it was eluded or dis- 
regarded. The royal cedula, however, in 1511, in conse- 
quence of the inconvenience to w^hich they were exposed 
by the strict construction of the law, permits the use of 
round-pointed knives, but forbids sharp-pointed ones. 
Licences to bear arms were issued, however, under 
greater or less authority and were doubtless lucrative 
to those who assumed to grant them. The attention 
of Charles V. was called to this and, in his Edict of 
Granada, in 1526, he ordered that all such licences 
should be presented to the corregidores, after which he 
would determine what action to take respecting them, 
and at the same time he prohibited the nobles from 
issuing them to their vassals — regulations which in 
1528 he extended to all the kingdoms.^ These licences 
became recognized and abused ; those who had them 
were said to procure more arms than they needed, which 
they sold to the monfies or outlaws of the sierras, to 
remedy which they were ordered, in 1552, to present 
them to the captain-general together with their arms 
and have them sealed under pain of five years of galleys 
— an order which was repeated in 1563 and which in 
both cases was slackly obeyed.^ 

In Valencia, as a prudent preliminary to baptism, the 
Moors were all disarmed in November, 1525. In the 
negotiations for the concordia of 1528 they asked for the 

^ Nueva Recop. Lib. viii. Tit. ii. ley 13. — Coleccion de Doc. ined. 
XXXVL 569. 

^ Janer, p. 52. — Marmol Carvajal, p. 159. — Danvila, p. 172. 



192 THE CONDITION OF THE MOEISCOS. 

return of their arms^ which they had hitherto used loy- 
ally in the king^s service and would continue to do so 
to the death. To this the answer was that they should be 
treated as Old Christians.^ Like all the other pledges^ 
this was made only to be jDroken. Among the restric- 
tions of the pragmatica of 1541 was the prohibition to 
carry arms^ whether offensive or defensive. With the 
customary laxity of administration this was not enforced 
and^ in 1545, fresh orders were sent to disarm them. 
That it was regarded as a work of no little dauger is 
shown by a letter of the viceroy, the Duke of Calabria, 
to Prince Philip, February 3, 1545. He had consulted 
with the archbishop and others, sworn to secrecy, who 
all agreed that the measure was necessary, leaving them 
only a knife apiece and reducing them to the condition of 
those of Granada. It is thought best to notify the great 
lords secretly in advance, such as the Dukes of Segorbe 
and Gandia and the Count of Oliva, while the viceroy 
promised to start it in the baronies of Alberich and 
Alcocer, which were under his charge and were the 
largest Morerias in the kingdom, and when he and the 
other three set the example the other lords will not ven- 
ture to hold back, though they fear their Moriscos will 
be so outraged that they will flee to Barbary. The 
sierras of Bernia and Espadan must be seized and there 
must be sufficient troops within call if necessary. It was 
better to make the lords do it and not the royal officials 
as ordered, but the latter should be present so that the 
Moriscos might understand that the measure was general.^ 

1 Bleda, Cronica, p. 648. — Dormer, Libro ii. cap. 1.— Danvila, pp. 
92, 104. 

^ Danvila, p. 127. — Coleccion de Doc. ined. Y. 88. — Janer, p. 242. 



DISARMAMENT. 193 

These consultations led to no action — possibly the lords 
were afraid to act — and^ in 1547^ Archbishop Tomas de 
Vilanova suggested that^ for the security of the preachers 
sent out to convert the Moriscos^ it would be well to dis- 
arm them^ at least of missile weapons^ such as arquebusses 
and cross-bows. Still nothing was done and^ in 1552, 
St. Tomas wrote in much trepidation to Prince Philip 
about a Turkish fleet reported to have been seen off 
Majorca ; he begged for 2000 troops to be sent at once 
to prevent a rising, and if not needed for this they could 
be used to disarm the Moriscos, which ought to have 
been done long before.^ As usual, procrastination ruled 
and, in 1561, the inquisitor Gregorio de Miranda, in 
response to a command for his advice, specified disarm- 
ament as the indispensable preliminary measure. It 
should be done in winter, when the corsairs dare not 
approach the shore, and should be commenced by the 
great nobles under threat that if they do not do it the 
king will.^ Finally, in 1563, the measure was executed. 
Preparations were secretly made for carrying it out simul- 
taneously everywhere by the barons, who were subjected 
to a fine of 2000 florins for non-compliance. The royal 
pragmatica of January 19, 1563, forbade all conversos 
and their descendants from possessing or carrying arms 
under pain of forfeiture of the arms, perpetual galleys, 
confiscation of houses in which they might be found and 
arbitrary penalties including death. Inventories were to 
be made of all arms seized with their value, which was 
to be repaid to the owners, and only four hours were 
allowed for the surrender. This was accompanied with 

1 Coleccion de Doc. ined. V. 102, 123. 2 Panvila, p. 163. 

13 



194 THE CONDITION OF THE MOEISCOS, 

a proclamation of the captain-general taking all Moriscos 
under the royal safeguard ; as some persons maltreated 
and insulted them, those who should call them dogs or 
the like were to be fined 25 ducats or imprisoned for 
thirty days ; those who should strike or wound them or 
damage their property should, if honorable persons, be 
exiled from Spain for two years, if plebeians should be 
sent to the galleys for the same term. The disarmament 
was fairly thorough. The inventories show that, in a 
total of 16,377 Morisco houses, there were seized 14,930 
swords, 3454 cross-bows and a long list of other arms, 
offensive and defensive, proving that the Moriscos had 
industriously provided themselves with weapons.^ 

In Aragon the matter of disarmament was placed in 
the hands of the Inquisition which, November 4, 1559, 
issued a decree forbidding all Moriscos from bearing 
arms, but the nobles appealed from this to the Suprema 
and had influence enough to procure an indefinite post- 
ponement of its execution, the reason alleged being that 
without arms no one would be able to maintain his rights 
in the irrigating canals.^ In 1590 the matter was taken 
up again, on a proposition to surrender their weapons in 
consideration of a general pardon. After consulting with 
the king, the Suprema instructed the inquisitors of Sara- 
gossa to discuss the matter with the archbishop, the 
Viceroy Almenara and the Count of Sastago. It is 
illustrative of the methods of the period that when they 
asked the archbishop to fix a day and hour for the meet- 

^ Dan Vila (Boletin de la E. Acad, de la Hist., Abril, 1877, pp. 276- 
306). 

2 Guadalajara y Xavierr, fol. 62. — Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, 
Libro 13, foL 372.— Relazioni Venete, Serie I. Tom. VI. p. 407. 



DISARMAMENT. 195 

ing and he replied requesting them to name the time^ 
but in a manner to show that he expected the junta to 
be held in the archiepiscopal palace^ to which the in- 
quisitors were to go like the nobles^ their dignity was so 
touched that they reported to the Suprema^ May 22, 1590^ 
and asked for instructions. The Suprema pondered over 
the matter until January 18, 1591^ and then ordered that 
the junta should be held in the Aljaferia, where the In- 
quisition was established, giving notice to the archbishop, 
and, if he did not choose to come, fchey were to consult the 
others without him.^ Then further delay occurred, owing 
to the revolt growing out of the affair of Antonio Perez, 
and it was not until after the pacification and the cortes 
of Tarazona that the matter was taken up again. March 
20, 1593, Philip ordered the disarmament and sent Pedro 
Pacheco, a member of the Suprema, and Don Ladron de 
Guevara to Saragossa to consult with the inquisitors as 
to details. They determined to issue edicts in the name 
of the Inquisition and the inquisitors shut themselves up 
in the morning with their secretaries and labored until 
six o^ clock the next morning preparing edicts for more 
than 130 places. On Palm Sunday, April 4th, these were 
published throughout the kingdom, ordering all arms to 
be surrendered within thirty days and none thereafter to 
be owned by New Christians under pain of a hundred 
lashes and a hundred ducats. Accompanying this was an 
edict of Inquisitor-general Quiroga pardoning all errors 
and apostasy that should be confessed. Two inquisitors 
were sent throughout the kingdom to see to the disarma- 
ment and to reconcile those who should take advantage 

^ Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 940, fol. 296. 



196 THE CONDITION OF THE MOEISCOS. 

of the Edict of Grace. No resistance was made ; besides 
weapons buried or secretly sold, there were collected 7076 
swords, 1356 pikes, lances and halberds, 489 cross-bows, 
3783 arquebusses and other weapons in large numbers. 
The edict permitted the retention of knives, and these 
were gradually increased in size till they became formi- 
dable w^eapons. After two or three officials of the Inqui- 
sition had been killed with them, when attempting to 
make arrests, a royal edict of 1603 limited the length to 
the third of an ell and required them to be pointless.^ 

In Catalonia, to the last, there was no distinction in 
the matter of arms between Old and New Christians, 
which led to some apprehension at the time of expulsion, 
but it was groundless, for no use was made of them.^ 

In addition to the deprivation of self-defence the limita- 
tions which the strict construction of these edicts imposed 
on the daily labors of the husbandman or artificer was a 
perpetual irritation and serious disability. In the sugar- 
culture, for instance, the heavy machete was almost essen- 
tial for cutting the cane, but it came within the proscrip- 
tion and in a thousand ways the labor of the Morisco 
was crippled for the lack of implements which the official 
might regard as dangerous weapons. In 1576 a Morisco 
muleteer of Granada, named Miguel Rodriguez, petitioned 
the king to be allowed to carry a pointless dagger such as 
was permitted in Granada and was necessary to his busi- 

^ Guadalajara j Xavierr, fol. 64. — Lanuza, Historias de Aragon, II. 
417. 

In 1593 we find an ojjuda de costa of 40 ducats granted to Juan del 
Olmo, notary of the Inquisition of Valencia, for his labors in the dis- 
arming of the Moriscos of Xea, Albarracin and Teruel. — Arch. Hist. 
Nacional, Inq« de Valencia, Legajo 5, No. 1, fol. 403. 

2 Bleda, Cronica, p. 1049. 



LIMPIEZA, 197 

ness. The reply to this was a royal order recapitulating 
a provision of the pragmatica of Granada forbidding any 
Morisco of that kingdom from carrying any weapon^ 
offensive or defensive^ save a pointless knife, under pen- 
alty, for a first offence, of confiscation, for a second of 
six years of galleys and for a third of galleys for life, all 
of which was ordered to be strictly enforced.^ 

The imputation of broken faith can scarce be cast on 
the disabilities as to holding office or benefices, which in 
the latter part of the sixteenth century weighed upon the 
Moriscos, but nevertheless it was deeply felt by the rich 
and educated among them, many of whom were Chris- 
tians in heart as well as in externals. It was a matter 
not prominent at the time of the enforced baptisms and 
promises of equality with Old Christians, but was a later 
outgrowth of the increasing development of fanatic in- 
tolerance, attributable in part to the passions aroused 
by the Reformation. Space is lacking to treat here the 
portentous subject of limpieza, or purity of blood, which 
in time filled the land of Spain with envy, hatred and all 
uncharitableness. It must suffice to say that, towards the 
middle of the sixteenth century, the doors were closed on 
all descendants of Jews and Moors, or of heretics publicly 
penanced by the Inquisition, for admission to many of 
the colleges and universities, to benefices in many cathe- 
dral churches, to most of the religious and all the mili- 
tary Orders, to positions in the Inquisition and even in 
some places to municipal offices. The exact extent to 
which this prevailed it would be impossible now to de- 
fine, for each body was a law unto itself in this respect. 

^ Janer, p. 251, 



198 THE CONDITION OF THE MOBISCOS. 

Thus in Granada^ we are told^ the cathedral and collegiate 
churches did not require limpieza^ while in Bilboa it was 
a condition for municipal office/ In the great universi- 
ties^ such as Salamanca and Alcala, the condition of lim- 
pieza must have been confined to the faculties and officials, 
for it would have been impossible to require the crowds 
of students to go through the tedious and expensive 
process of presenting proofs of limpieza, but in the col- 
lege of the Dominican house of Santa Maria of Toledo it 
was enforced on all students of arts and theology.^ In a 
land where a career in ecclesiastical or secular office was 

^ Escobar de Paritate et Nobilitate probanda, P. I. Q. xiii. ^ 3 No. 
71. — Ordenanzas de la Noble Villa de Bilbao, Tit. i. cap. ii. (Bilbao, 
1682). 

The Basque Provinces seem to have been particularly antagonistic to 
Moors and Jews. As early as 1482 Guipuscoa had a statute forbidding 
conversos to reside or to marry there (Pulgar, Letra xxxi. p. 61). In 
1511 Biscay procured a royal pragmatica expelling all conversos and 
Moors and their descendants. In 1561 it petitioned the Council of 
Castile for the enforcement of this, but the council decided that it had 
never been enforced and that its enforcement was inexpedient, so the 
procurators were told to depart and they would be summoned when the 
subject was to be considered. Not content with this rebuff they made 
another application in 1565, with the same result. — Autos y Acuerdos 
del Consejo, fol. 5, 8 (Madrid, 1649). — Autos Acordados, Lib. viii. 
Tit. ii. Auto 1. — No vis. Kecop. Lib. xii. Tit. i. ley. 4. 

2 Ripoll, Bullar. Ord. FF. Prsedic. IV. 163. —In the letter, June 
19, 1547, of Archbishop Siliceo of Toledo and his chapter to the 
Royal Council, arguing in favor of the statute of limpieza which they 
had adopted, they say it is in force in all the Spanish colleges and even 
in that of Bologna, founded by Albornoz, none but Old Christians were 
received as collegians, chaplains or familiars and from these colleges 
were drawn, for the most part, the members of councils and chancel- 
leries and other judicial officers, and all other members of councils and 
chancelleries, are Old Christians, except through ignorance. — Burriel, 
Vidas de los Arzobispos de Toledo, Vol. II. fol. 2, 3 (Biblioteca Naci- 
onal, Seccion de MSS. Ff. 194). 



LIMPIEZA. 199 

the ambition of almost every one who had even a smat- 

t/ 

tering of education, the barrier thus erected was a severe 
infliction on the more intelligent and influential Moriscos 
and could scarcely fail to excite disaffection and discon- 
tent. Navarrete^ indeed^ thinks that the necessity for 
the expulsion could have been avoided but for this — 
that they could have been Christianized if they had been 
admitted to a share of the honors of public life and had 
not been driven to desperation and hatred of religion by 
the indelible mark of infamy which was imposed on them.^ 
Yet in the earlier period of this development there 
seems rather to have been a desire to shield the Moriscos 
from its blio:htino;: influence. The office of familiar of 
the Inquisition, although unsalaried, was one eagerly 
sought, both on account of a certain amount of social 
distinction which it conferred and of the exemption 
which it carried from the jurisdiction of the secular 
courts. The first -application of limpieza to familiars 
occurs in an order by the Suprema, October 10, 1546, 
that none shall be admitted who is not an Old Christian, 
but when, in 1547, the cortes of Monzon complained that 
many Moriscos y^eve appointed, the reply of the Suprema 
was that the Inquisition regards as capable of holding 
office all who are baptized and live as Christians, except 
heretics and apostates and their fautors. It was not long 
before there was a change as to this, for, in a letter of 
1552 to the inquisitors of Valencia, Inquisitor-general 
Valdes orders that they appoint as familiars none who 
are descended from Jews or Moors, and a royal cedula 
of March 10, 1553, prescribes as a universal rule that 

^ Navarrete, Conservacion de Monarquias, pp. 51-3 (Ed. 1626). 



200 THK CONDITION OF THE MOHISCOS. 

familiars shall be Old Christians. Yet in 1565^ when 
Philip II. was essaying conciliation^ he ordered that 
leading and influential Moriscos shall be appointed. It 
was not long after this^ however, in 1568, that we find 
the inquisitors of Barcelona reproved for inobservance of 
the rule and ordered to see that in future all familiars 
shall be limpios} Even more marked was the considera- 
tion shown with respect to clerical careers. When, in 
1566, Archbishop Ayala introduced the rule of limpieza 
in the Valencian church, he prohibited any descendant of 
Jews or heretics to the fourth generation direct, or the 
second degree collateral, from obtaining any ecclesiastical 
dignity or preferment.^ In this the omission of Moriscos 
is significant. Paul IV. had forbidden admission to holy 
orders to the descendants of Jews to the fourth genera- 
tion and, in 1573, Gregory XIII. extended this to Moors, 
but in 1564, at the cortes of Monzon, it was decreed that 
those trained in the Morisco college of Valencia should 
be allowed to hold benefices and the cure of souls among 
their people,^ and we are told that they graduated some 
good priests and preachers and doctors of theology.^ As 
time wore on, however, and as hatred and contempt 
were intensified, the exclusion became general ; able and 

^ Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 4, foL 208, 215 ; Libro 
922, fol. 15 ; Libro 926, fol. 33 ; Visitas de Barcelona, Legajo 15, fol. 
20.— Danvila, p. 169. 

^ Aguirre, Concil. Hispan., V. 495. 

3 Bledse Defensio Fidei, p. 372. 

^ Fonseca, p. 377. Fonseca however tells us (p. 67) that Archbishop 
Eibera suspended from their functions all Morisco priests, though among 
them there were doctors and vicars of good life and reputation, who had 
been educated in the seminaries, owing to a probable doubt as to 
whether they had been baptized. 



RELATIONS TO THE CHUUCB. 201 

ambitious men^ who might have done the state service 
and have been useful in winning over their fellows^ were 
rendered hopeless and were reduced to expend their 
vigor in spreading disaffection and stimulating the spirit 
of revolt. 

If the relations of the Moriscos to the state and to 
society were thus deplorable^ those which they bore to the 
Churchy even apart from persecution^ were little better. 
It was only under the fiction that they were Christians 
that they were allowed to exist in the land of their an- 
cestors ; it was the duty of the Church to make them 
conform to its observances^ externally at least, and they 
were therefore subjected to perpetual espionage and the 
enforced performance of practices at which they revolted. 
They were exposed to the extortions, legal and illegal, of 
alguaziles, appointed by the bishops, but with the privi- 
leges of familiars, whose duty it was to keep close watch 
over them and collect the fines for working on feast- 
days, absence from mass, or doing other things prohib- 
ited in the printed instructions issued for their guidance. 
In 1595 Bishop Perez of Segorbe describes these gentry 
as paid by a half or a third of their collections, and as 
this amounted to a bare pittance the position was only 
accepted by the very poor, who were bribed to conceal 
the offences committed and were afraid to do their duty, 
threatened as they were by the lords and also by the 
Moriscos in remote districts.^ 

To one practice the Moriscos were particularly attached 
— the treatment of their dead, arraying them in clean 

^ Archivo de Simancas, Inqn Se Valencia, Leg. 205, fol. 3. 



202 THE CONDITION OF THE MORISCOS. 

grave-clothes and burying them in virgin earth. We 
have seen (p. 129) how the former gave rise to prose- 
cutions by the Inquisition. As for the latter^ in the 
Concordia of 1528^ the syndics of the aljamas asked that^ 
where they lived together with Old Christians^ they could 
have their own cemeteries^ to which the answer was that 
cemeteries could be established near the churches changed 
from mosques^ but Old Christians were not to be debarred 
from burial there if they wished.^ This partially satis- 
fied them and it continued until 1591, when it was 
ordered that they should be buried inside of the churches, 
which was so abhorrent to them that they vainly offered 
more than thirty thousand ducats if king or pope would 
allow them to be interred elsewhere, even though in 
dunghills.^ 

The baptism of their children was the source of per- 
petual irritation. It was the duty of the Church to see 
that none escaped, for only thus could they have a chance 
of salvation and only thus could it claim jurisdiction over 
them. The most rigid regulations were consequently pre- 
scribed to ensure that the sacrament was duly adminis- 
tered. No Morisca woman was allowed to act as midwife. 
In every Morisco village there was a Christian midwife, 
carefully selected and instructed. She kept watch on all 
pregnant women and was fined in a hundred reales for 
every case she missed. After putting the infant to the 
mother's breast, her first duty was to notify the priest or 
alguazil and then she never left the bedside save to attend 
to indispensable duties about the house. The baptism 



1 Danvila, p. 103. 

2 Bledse Defensio Fidei, p. 71 ; Cronica, p. 950. 



BAPTISM.— MAREI A GE. 203 

took place on the same day or the next^ and careful 
registers were kept so that all could be identified. It 
is the universal statement^ and doubtless true^ that on 
returning home the father scraped and washed the spots 
touched with the chrism, thinking thereby to efface the 
sacrament.^ 

Marriage was another subject in which the Church 
was brought into conflict with the customs and convic- 
tions of the Moriscos. Even before matrimony had been 
erected into a sacrament, the Church had assumed to 
control it and had defined the degrees of kinship within 
which it was permissible. After at one time extending 
this to the shadowy relationship expressed by the seventh 
degree, it had been satisfied with the sufficiently distant 
one of the fourth and, by the invention of so-called 

^ Bleda, Cronica, pp. 951-2. Bleda here controverts an absurd 
statement of Fonseca tha^ to elude baptism they would present one child 
repeatedly. Thus in Buiiol, he says, there were twenty births within 
eight days ; of these one child was selected who was baptized twenty 
times. Children were even lent for this pur[)ose from one village to 
another. Along the river Mijares it was the custom that the one first 
born in a space of two months served for all the rest during that time 
(Fonseca, p. 67). The foundation of this was a statement sent to 
Archbishop Ribera from Oran, purporting to come from Miguel Ferrer, 
a refugee Moor of Ayodar. Ribera was so impressed by it that he 
suspended, as we have seen, all Morisco priests as being doubtfully 
baptized, and in a pastoral of August 3, 1610, he ordered that all chil- 
dren below the age of reason, retained at the expulsion, should be con- 
ditionally baptized. Bleda also gave credit to it at first (Defensio 
Fidei, p. 422j. His subsequent refutation of it shows how credulous 
were all churchmen where the Moriscos were concerned. First there 
were the two sexes to be considered, and no girl could be presented for 
a boy. Then no priest would accept an infant two weeks or two months 
old for one new-born. Then in the whole baronies of Ayodar and 
Fuentes, in the valley of the Mijares, there were not more that fifty 
Morisco households and there was not over a birth a month. 



204 THE CONDITION OF THE MORISCOS. 

affinity^ spiritual and otherwise^ it had enlarged the pro- 
hibited area and had introduced a number of perplexing 
questions. At the same time it had created for the pope 
the power of issuing dispensations^ disregarding the fact 
that this implied the admission that the prohibition was 
purely artificial and without basis in natural or moral 
law. This gave to the Holy See not only vast political 
influence^ in its ability to permit or forbid dynastic mar- 
riages^ but an abundant source of income in the sale of 
dispensations, the price for which was made to depend 
on the needs or ability of the purchaser.^ 

Among the Moors, marriage w^as permitted between first 
cousins, and as, for the most part, they lived in small 
isolated agricultural communities, intermarriage for gen- 
erations had created such a complexity of kinships that 
probably few or none within them could be found whose 
unions were not incestuous and invalid under ecclesiastical 
definitions. The same was true of those living in cities, 
walled off in their Morerias, where mixed marriages with 
Christians could not have been common. In 1501, when 
those of Castile were forcibly converted, as soon as they 
were baptized their unions became incestuous and invalid 
and their children illegitimate, but what action was taken 
in this supremely important matter does not appear, though, 
as we have seen in Daimiel, in 1550, in the trial of Mari 

^ In 1301 Boniface VIII. sold, for the enormous sum of ten thousand 
silver marks, the legitimation of Fernando IV., of Castile, the mar- 
riage of whose father Sancho IV. was invalid for lack of a dispensa- 
tion (Cronica de Don Fernando IV. cap. viii.}- 

For the varying legislation of the Church respecting the forbidden 
degrees of consanguinity, from the fourth to the seventh, see Gratian, 
Decreti P. II. Cans. xxxv. Qusest. 2-5. — For the canons on affinity see 
Tit. xi.-xiv. in Sexto, Lib. iv. 



MARRIAGE. 205 

Gomez^ one of the charges was that she had proposed to 
marry a son to a girl within the prohibited degrees with- 
out applying for a dispensation.^ In Valencia^ after the 
wholesale baptisms of 1526^ one of the petitions of the 
syndics of the aljamas represented the hardship that 
would ensue by invalidating such marriages existing and 
contracted^ wherefore the inquisitor-general was suppli- 
cated to induce the legate to dispense for such consum- 
mated marriages and for all that might be contracted for 
forty years to come, to which the reply was that the 
legate had already been consulted and was willing to do 
so as respected existing marriages and those agreed upon 
prior to the conversion, but his faculties did not extend 
to future ones ; he had been asked to apply to the pope, 
but the Moriscos hereafter must conform to the canons.^ 
It was impossible for them to do so. They continued 
to intermarry although their unions in the eye of the 
Church and the law^vere mere concubinage. Doubtless 
the rectors sought to make them purchase dispensations 
and in their absence refused to perform the rites. We 
are told that they rarely sought for dispensations and 
would never have done so but for fear of the Inquisition ; 
that in some places they contented themselves with in- 
forming the lord that the parties were of kin and if he 
made no objection the marriage would take place — a 
degree of carelessness on the part of the nobles for which 
more than one was prosecuted by the Inquisition and 
publicly penanced.^ This probably explains why the 
cortes of Monzon, in 1564, petitioned that facilities 
should be given for obtaining dispensations from the 

^ Proceso de Mari Gomez (MS. jpenes me). ^ Danvila, p. 104. 

3 Fonseca, p. 72. Cf. Bleda, Cronica, p. 905, 



206 THE CONDITION OF THE MOEISCOS. 

Commissioner of the Santa Cruzada^ who had the necessary 
faculties ; also that the children sprung from such unions 
should be regarded as legitimate. The response to this 
by the bishops^ at the council of Valencia in 1565^ was a 
series of canons threatening excommunication and other 
severe penalties on all marrying within the prohibited 
degrees and on all concerned in evasions of the rule.^ 

Like everything else in this unhappy business^ the 
matter^ despite its importance^ was allowed to drift along. 
At lengthy in 1587^ Philip II. represented to Sixtus V. 
that the Moriscos were contracting marriages^ both clan- 
destine and within the prohibited degrees, which were 
therefore invalid and the children illegitimate, but all 
that he obtained was a brief, January 25, 1588, directed 
to Archbishop Ribera, granting to him and his bishops, 
for six months only, faculties to validate such marriages, 
legitimate the children and absolve the parents in utroque 
foro, imposing on them salutary penance, for all of which 
it was strictly forbidden to charge fees.^ Under such 
conditions it is not likely that the episcopal officials took 
much pains to promulgate the brief or that the Moriscos 
were eager to avail themselves of it. The last that we 
hear of the matter is that, in 1595, Philip resolved to 
apply to Rome for another brief conferring faculties for 
dispensation.^ Doubtless it was granted and was as little 
efficient as the previous ones. 

Among the minor inflictions may be mentioned the re- 
strictions placed on the Moriscos to prevent their having 

1 Dan Vila, p. 169.— Aguirre, Tom. V. p. 418. 

^ Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Libro IV. fol. 101, 102 (Archive 
Hist. Nacional). 
3 Danvila, pp. 228, 230. 



THEIR COMMUNITIES. 207 

meat killed in accordance with their customs. They were 
forbidden to exercise the trade of butchers or even to kill 
a fowl for a sick man^ nor were they allowed to approach 
the shambles when slaughtering was going on. It was 
probably difficult to enforce this^ especially in the remoter 
Morisco communities, for the law was repeated as late as 
1595.^ 

A Dutch archer of Philip II., who accompanied the 
king in his journey to the cortes of Monzon in 1585, 
affords us a contemporary glimpse of the Moriscos of 
the time. On crossing the Aragon border he observes 
that the population of the lands of the nobles is almost 
exclusively Moorish while that of the royal towns is 
Old Christian. The Moors, he says, are with difficulty 
brought to live in the latter. The town of Muel, the 
seat of a flourishing industry of Hispano-Moresque 
lustre ware, belonged to the Marquis of Camarasa and 
was populous with New Cliristians, who had maintained 
their laws since they conquered the land. They would 
not taste pork or wine, and he saw that, on the departure 
of the royal train, they broke all the glassware and pot- 
tery that had been used for the obnoxious food and drink. 
There were about two hundred households and only three 
Old Christians — the priest, the notary and the inn-keeper 
— while all the rest would rather make a pilgrimage to 
Mecca than to Compostella. The church was naturally 
little visited, as it was closed except on Sundays and feast- 
days, when the New Christians were forced to hear mass.^ 

^ Nueva Recop. Lib. viii. Tit. ii. ley 13. — Bledse Defensio Fidei, 
pp. 57, 421.— Dan Vila, p. 230. 

^ Henrique Cock, Relacion del Viage hecho por Felipe II. en 1585, 
pp. 30-1 (Madrid, 1876). 



208 THE CONDITION OF THE MOEISCOS, 

Thus in the kingdoms of Aragon the races kept apart 
and were no nearer amalgamation than they had been 
when Charles V. made his ill-starred attempt to enforce 
uniformity of faith. In the kingdom of Castile there 
was greater approximation in externals but not much 
more in essentials. A more general view^ expressing 
moreover the popular prejudices against the race^ is 
afforded by Archbishop Ribera in his second memorial. 
The Moriscos, he says^ are of two classes. One is free 
from vassalage to lords^ such as all those expelled from 
Granada, although they may have settled on feudal lands, 
and those who are scattered in various places of Castile 
such as Avila, Olmeda and many others. The other class 
are born vassals of lords, such as those of Aragon and 
Valencia. The first live among Christians and for the 
most part speak our language and use our dress and bear 
arms, but are as thoroughly Moors as those of Valencia, 
with greater opportunities to live as such, for, as they 
have not public aljamas nor live apart, they are not 
watched by their priests, which is no small reproach to 
the latter and their bishops. The latter dwell in com- 
munities, having their aljamas and a superintendent. 
The former bear arms and many of them being muleteers 
they maintain communication with the others throughout 
Spain. In the army they serve as spies. They are ava- 
ricious and economical and are the sponge of the wealth 
of Spain ; there is no doubt that they possess most of the 
gold and silver, for though there is great scarcity of 
money they are rich, although they pay heavy tribute 
and give their lords one-third of what they produce and 
their lords exact from them not only the ordinary rents 
and services but many gifts and loans. Wherever they 



GRIEVANCES URGED AGAINST THEM. 209 

go they reduce the people to poverty. He had seen in 
Andalusia how the competition of those driven from 
Granada had reduced the number of Old Christians. 
They are hard-working and thrifty and, spending little 
on food or drink and clothing, they work for what would 
not support an Old Christian, so they are preferred by 
purchasers and employers ; they monopolize the mechanic 
arts and commerce as well as working by day's labor. 
As they do not buy bread or meat or wine the excise for 
the king and for local needs, w^hich is mostly levied on 
these articles, falls more heavily on the Old Christians. 
Thus we are peopling our country with heretics and 
destroying the faithful.^ 

This indictment of underselling and cheapening labor 
indicates one of the grievances which stimulated popu- 
lar enmity. The Venetian envoy, in 1595, describes 
the Moriscos as constantly increasing in numbers and 
wealth ; they never go to war but devote themselves 
exclusively to trade and gain.^ Bleda, it is true, argues 
that if they worked or sold cheaper than Old Chris- 
tians they at least raised families and spent money 
and thus were far less injurious than the foreigners 
who brought gewgaws to Spain and carried the money 
away, thus impoverishing the land.^ Cervantes, on the 
other hand, gave utterance to the popular feeling in his 
CoUoquio de los perros : the Moriscos multiply, they all 
marry, they never put their children into religion or the 
army, they pay nothing for teaching them, for all their 
science is to rob us. They spend little and hoard what 

^ Ximenez, Vida de Ribera, pp. 377-9. 

^ Relazioni Venete, Serie I. Tom. Y. p. 451. 

^ Bleda, Cronica, p. 906. 

14 



210 THE CONDITION OF THE MOBISCOS, 

they gain, so that they now have most of the money in 
Spain ; it is a slow fever which kills as certainly as a rag- 
ing one.^ All this found official expression in the Castilian 
cortes of 1592, which represented to Philip that previous 
ones had asked him to remedy the evils of the Granadan 
Moriscos scattered through the land. These evils, they 
say, are daily increasing, for the longer the cure is de- 
layed the greater are their numbers ; they have obtained 
possession of trade, especially in provisions, which is the 
crucible in which money is melted, for they gather and 
hide it at the harvest time so that the crops must pass 
through their hands. With this object they become shop- 
keepers, caterers, bakers, butchers, inn-keepers, water- 
carriers etc., whereby they get and hoard all the money. 
They never buy land and thus become rich and power- 
ful so that they control the secular and ecclesiastical courts 
which so favor them that they live openly in disregard of 
religion. They daily emigrate to Barbary ; they marry 
among themselves and never ask for dispensations but 
celebrate their weddings with zambras and they bear arms 
publicly. The most atrocious crimes committed within 
these ten years are their work. In assessing the servicio 
or subsidy, they have been numbered and counted, where- 
by it is evident that they can cause the State some dis- 
quiet — for all of which a remedy is sought at the king's 
hands. The remedy was an edict ordering all the mag- 
istrates of the kingdom to enforce with rigor the severe 
restrictive legislation directed against them.^ 

It is evident that the causes of complaint in the king- 

1 Obras de Cervantes, p. 242 (Madrid, 1864). 

2 Janer, p. 270. — Bleda, Cronica, p. 905. — Nueva Recop. Lib. vili. 
Tit. ii. ley 24. 



POPULAR HATRED. 211 

doms of Castile were not the same as in those of Aragon^ 
but the underlying motives were similar. It was not 
alone religious hatred^ but the fact that the Spaniards were 
to a great extent consumers and the Moriscos were pro- 
ducers. The Spaniard sought a career in the church or 
the army or the service of the state ; he despised those 
on whose labor he lived^ he grudged theoi the earnings 
of toil and thrift ; to them he attributed the gradual de- 
pauperization which was the result of his own false view 
of life and mistaken policy^ and he was eager to find some 
excuse for stripping them of their accumulations and re- 
ducing them to a greater depth of poverty. 

A curious custom in Valencia, as described by an 
eye-witness, illustrates the quality of the religious fervor 
directed against the Moriscos. \yhen a criminal of the 
race was to be executed he was asked whether he desired 
to die as a Christian or as a Moor. In the former case 
he was hanged in the market-place ; in the latter he was 
taken to a spot outside the walls, known as the Rambla, 
where he was stoned to death and afterwards burnt, accord- 
ing to the command of God for idolaters (Deut. xvii. 5). 
To escape this they usually professed Christianity with 
great zeal and then on the gallows invoked Mahomet. 
The populace were prepared for this and, to ensure the 
execution of the divine command, they stood with stones in 
their hands and as soon as the word Mahomet was uttered 
they sent a volley like a hailstorm which not only killed the 
culprit but broke not a few Christian heads. Next morn- 
ing not a stone could be found on the ground where the 
previous evening they had lain by the thousand — all were 
carried off during the night and w^ere treasured as the relics 
of a martyr.^ 

^ Fonseca, p. 73, 



212 THE CONDITION OF THE MORIS COS. 

Race hatred^ religious hatred and the assumed antag- 
onism of interests combined to render the situation im- 
possible in the absence of a wise statesmanship of which 
the Spain of the period was incapable. Enforced conver- 
sion had rendered the condition of the Moriscos distinctly 
worse. In place of enjoying the promised benefits of the 
status of Old Christians they were subjected to all the 
former burdens with new ones superadded ; they were 
exposed to the constant supervision and extortions of 
sacristans and alguaziles, with the ever-present terror of 
the Inquisition impending over them and they could only 
regard as a mockery the interest felt by their persecutors 
for the salvation of their souls and as an intolerable in- 
termeddling the gratuitous interference with their habits 
and customs. That they should grow restive under in- 
cessant provocation and ready to welcome any mode of 
deliverance from intolerable bondage was inevitable. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE REBELLIONS" OF GRANADA. 

In Granada the experiment was pushed to the utter- 
most of how far the endurance of a population could be 
tried by oppression and wrong of every kind. In the 
severe repression of the rising of 1500 the more turbulent 
spirits had been allowed to seek refuge in Barbary and 
the remainder had settled down peacefully^ had pursued 
their industries and had formed, if not a contented, at 
least a fairly prosperous community, constituting, as they 
did, a vast majority of the inhabitants. Pedraza, himself 
a canon of the cathedral of Granada, and almost a con- 
temporary, gives a most favorable account of them. There 
were few idlers among them, they were moral, strictly 
honorable in their dealings, and most charitable to their 
poor, but the avarice of the judges and the insolence of 
the officials of the law rendered them disaffected through 
the abuses to which they were subjected and, as the min- 
isters of the Church were no better, they lost all affection 
for religion. Archbishop Guerrero, in 1565, held a provin- 
cial council to reform these evils, but his chapter appealed 
from its provisions as an illegal invasion of their priv- 
ileges and matters went on as before. The Moriscos had 
submitted to baptism but were heretics at heart ; they 
went to mass to escape the fine ; they worked behind doors 
on feast-days with more pleasure than on other days and 



214 THE REBELLION OF GBAJSfADA. 

they kept Fridays better than Sundays ; they washed 
themselves even in December and regularly performed 
the accompanying zala ; to comply with the law they had 
their children baptized and then washed off the chrism^ 
performed circumcision on the boys^ and gave them Moor- 
ish names. Brides went to church in borrowed Christian 
garments and on returning home changed them to Moor- 
ish and celebrated the nuptials with zambras and leilas. 
They learned the prayers in order to marry and then for- 
got them ; they confessed during Lent in order to get the 
requisite ce]:tificate^ but their confessions were imperfect 
and one year merely repeated another.^ They at least 
were loyal subjects for^ in 1522, they were among the first 
to take up arms against the Comuneros ; Don Juan de 
Granada, brother of the last native king Abdelehi, served 
as general in Castile and did his full duty.^ 

In 1526 Charles, while in Granada, was appealed to, 
in the name of the Moriscos, by three descendants of the 
old Moorish kings, Fernando Venegas, Miguel de Aragon 
and Diego Lopez Benexara, for protection against their 
ill-treatment by the priests, judges, alguaziles, and other 
officials, whereupon he appointed a commission to inves- 
tigate and report.^ Fray Antonio de Guevara was one of 
the commissioners and hurried from his baptismal work 
in Valencia to the Alpujarras where he describes, in a 
letter to a friend, the New Christians as requiring so much 
to correct that it had better be done in secret rather than 
to punish them publicly ; they have been so ill-taught in 

^ Pedraza, Historia eclesiastica de Granada, fol. 236-8 (Granada, 
1638), 
^ Marmol Carvajal, Rebelion y Castigo, p. 164. 
^ Sandoval, xiv. 18. — Dormer, Lib. ii. cap. vii. 



EDICT OF 15^6. 215 

the faith^ and the magistrates have so winked at their 
errors that it will be enough to remedy it in the future 
without meddling with the past/ There can be no doubt as 
to the nature of the commissioners^ reports which Charles 
received in Granada ; they confirmed the complaints of 
ill-usage but stated that there were not to be found 
among the Moriscos more than seven true Christians. He 
referred the reports to a junta of important personages, 
under the presidency of Inquisitor-general Manrique, and 
the outcome was the Edict of Granada, December 7, 1526. 
As might be expected this did not address itself to the 
redress of the admitted grievances of the Moriscos but to 
the repression of their apostasy — not by providing them 
with instruction but by restrictions and threats. It 
granted an amnesty for past offences but as a means of 
salutary terrorizing it ordered the transfer to Granada of 
the Inquisition of Jaen.^ A term of grace was granted 
for those who would come forward and confess, after 
which the laws against heresy would be rigorously en- 
forced, except that for some years, fines were in practice, 
substituted for confiscation and time was given to allow 
the culprits to earn them.^ 

The Edict imposed many restrictions which were tri- 
fling but vexatious, and some that were oppressive to no 
small degree. It forbade the use of Arabic and the wear- 
ing of Moorish dress ; tailors were not to make garments 

^ Guevara, Epistolas familiareSj p. 543. 

^ Sandoval, Dormer, uhi sup. The papal brief authorizing this 
transfer was dated July 7, 1527, in the castle of Sant' Angelo where 
Clement was kept a prisoner by Charles's troops. — Llorente, Aiiales, 
11. 315. 

^ Archivo de Simancas, Libro 926, fol. 80 (see Appendix No. XI.). 



216 THE REBELLION OF GRANADA, 

nor silversmiths jewels after their fashion ; their baths 
were prohibited ; all births were to be watched by Chris- 
tian midwives to see that no Moorish rites were per- 
formed ; disarmament was to be enforced by a rigid 
inspection of licences ; their doors were to be kept open 
on feast-days, Fridays, Saturdays and during weddings, 
to see that Moorish rites were abandoned and Christian 
ones observed ; schools for the education of children in 
Castilian were to be established in Granada, Guadix and 
Almeria ; no Moorish names were to be used and they 
were not to keep gacis or unbaptized Moors either free 
or as slaves.^ 



^ Dormer, Lib. i. cap. vii. — Bleda, Cronica, p. 566. — Marmol Car- 
vajal, p. 158. — Nueva Kecop. Lib. viii. Tit. ii. leyes 13, 15, 17. 

The wearing of Moorish garments had been forbidden under Ferdi- 
nand, but the prohibition was suspended until, in 1518, Charles ordered 
it enforced and again suspended it at the petition of the Moriscos. — 
(Marmol Carvajal, Bleda, uhi sup. ) It and the abandonment of 
Arabic were ordered in Valencia, but in the concordia of 1528 they 
were suspended for ten years (Danvila, p. 102). 

In 1572 Philip II. again prohibited the use of Arabic by the exiles 
from Granada as we shall see below. The Moorish ritual was in Arabic 
and seems never to have been translated. In the trials the prayers are 
always spoken of as being in Arabic. Francisca de Eibera, reconciled 
in the Toledo auto de fe of 1603, confessed that she had the intention of 
being a Moor and desired to learn some prayers but was unable in con- 
sequence of her ignorance of Arabic. — (MSS. of Library of Univ. of 
Halle, Yc. 20, Tom. I. ) In the middle of the seventeenth century, 
after the final expulsion, a manual of religious observances for the use 
of the exiles in Tunis was composed in Spanish, the author of which 
lamented that Arabic was unknown to them and the rites of worship 
forgotten. — Tratados de Legislacion Musulmana, p. 7 (Madrid, 1853). 

Fray Bleda, in a letter to Philip III. in 1605, treats with contempt 
the project of Christianizing the Moriscos by forcing them to abandon 
their dress and language. Their greatest alfaquies, he says, dress like 
Christians and use the vernacular so as not to be identified : he would 



NEGOTIATIONS FOR BELIEF, 217 

This naturally caused great agitation among the Moris- 
cos. They held a general assembly and raised 80,000 
ducats which they offered to Charles in addition to the 
ordinary tribute if he would recall the edict. Money 
doubtless was not spared among his advisers and before 
he left Granada he suspended it during his pleasure and 
also permitted them to carry sword and dagger in the 
towns and a lance when in the country, but not to keep 
other arms in their houses. In 1530, however, during 
his absence in Germany, the Empress-regent revived the 
provision respecting dress^ but on an appeal made to him 
he revoked her order, until he should return.^ It was 
doubtless then that the matter was compromised by the 
imposition of a special tax or licence known as farda, by 
the payment of which the use in Granada of the Moorish 
language and vestments was conceded. In 1563 we 
happen to know that this contributed 20,000 ducats to 
the royal treasury^^ The matter thus remained in abey- 
ance for many years, and when the Archbishop Gaspar 
de Avalos (about 1540) endeavored to compel the Moris- 
cos to abandon their costume, the secular authorities, with 
the captain-general at their head, made him abandon the 
attempt.^ 

rather see them distinguished by dressing in yellow or blue, like the 
Jews in Rome. — Cronica, p. 968. Cf. Defensionem Fidei, p. 425. 

In the older time costume was not of so much moment. The Cid 
was buried in a Moorish garment. At the battle of Grades, in 1063, 
Sadada, one of the Moorish chiefs, who wore a Christian dress and spoke 
Romance, was enabled to penetrate the Spanish lines and mortally 
wound Ramiro I. of Aragon. — Dozy, Recherches, II. 232, 243. 

^ Dormer, Marmol Carvajal, Bleda, ubi sup. 

^ Relazioni Venete, Serie I. Tom. V. p. 37. 

^ Marmol Carvajal, p. 163. 



218 THE REBELLION OF GHANADA. 

The Inquisition was duly established^ but for awhile it 
seems to have been inert for^ in 1532, the Captain-gen- 
eral Mondejar suggested to the emperor its suspension, on 
the ground that it had done nothing for it could find 
nothing against the converts, to which the Suprema re- 
plied that he was prejudiced and the matter was dropped. 
It is probable that this stimulated the tribunal to greater 
activity for, in 1537, the Moriscos petitioned that a general 
pardon should be granted, that fines and confiscations be 
abandoned and that other means of support be found for 
the tribunal, to which the reply was that confiscation and 
pecuniary penance were required by both the canon and 
secular law and were indispensable ; as for the pardon, if 
they really desired to save their souls by embracing the 
faith, a term of grace might be conceded during which 
they could confess in writing before the inquisitors and 
be absolved/ The pressure on the part of the Holy 
Office seems to have gone on increasing for, in 1539, with 
the support of Mondejar, the Moriscos again petitioned 
Charles for a general pardon without the necessity of 
confession and further that those condemned to burning 
or reconciliation should not have their property taken 
by confiscation or composition or consumed by excessive 
charges for support in prison during trial. This time 
Charles ordered a junta to consider the matter, consisting 
of Guevara, now Bishop of Mondonedo with the prelates 



^ Confession before an ordinary priest was auricular and was covered 
by the seal. In the Inquisition all confessions were written out by the 
notary or secretary and remained of record against the culprit. The 
one was sacramental, the other judicial. This, together with the obli- 
gation to denounce accomplices, explains much of the objection to con- 
fess to the inquisitors. 



NEG TIA TIONS FOR BELIEF, 219 

of Granada and other distinguished personages^ which 
reported unanimously against the requests ; they had had 
two terms of grace and if the Emperor desired to be mer- 
ciful he could grant them a third^ during which they could 
confess in writing and be absolved without confiscation 
or sanbenito, but that confiscation was a matter of law 
and could not be abolished.^ 

In 1543 a more determined effort was made. They 
arranged to pay six or seven thousand ducats to Christobal 
Mexia^ brother of the royal confessor Pedro do Soto, and 
twenty thousand to Mondejar,^ and repeated the prayer 
for pardon without confession or reconciliation. Inquisi- 
tor-general Tavera and the Suprema replied by referring 
to the report of the previous junta and offering a term of 
grace on the old conditions. INIondejar replied that they 
would not accept this, for by written confessions they ran 
the risk incident to relapse and they preferred to take 
their chances as they were ; that papal faculties could be 
obtained and the king could waive confiscation whenever 



^ Archivo de SimaDcas, Inquisicion, Libro 926, fol. 80. 

^ By this time Mondejar was no longer captain-general of Granada. 
He accompanied Charles V. to Tunis in 1535, after which he became 
Viceroy of Navarre until 1560, when he was made president of the 
council of Castile, the highest post in the kingdom. It will perhaps 
make the narrative clearer to explain that Inigo Lopez de Mendoza, 
Count of Tendilla, the first Captain-general of Granada, became Mar- 
quis of Mondejar, after which the eldest sons were known as Counts of 
Tendilla, and held the post of Alcalde of the Alhambra. Inigo Lopez 
died in 1512 and was succeeded as captain-general by his son Luis Hur- 
tado de Mendoza, the second marquis. In 1535, the latter was succeeded 
in the captain-generalship by his son Ifiigo Lopez, known as the Count 
of Tendilla until 1566, when, on the death of his father, he became the 
third marquis. — Memorial of the Fifth Marquis of Mondejar (Morel 
Fatio, L'Espagne au XVP et XVII^ Siecle, p. 59). 



220 THE REBELLION OF GUANADA, 

he pleased. Powerful influences were brought to bear in 
the imperial court including the offer of a subsidy of 
120^000 ducats and Charles wrote^ October 27, 1543, 
from Avesnes to Mond6jar, warmly thanking him, and to 
Prince Philip and Tavera that the Moriscos could have a 
general pardon without preceding confession and recon- 
ciliation and that there should be no confiscation for 
twenty-five or thirty years. The Inquisition by this 
time was not always obedient to royal commands. Ta- 
vera and the Suprema replied as they had done before, and 
that the servicio of 120,000 ducats offered by the Moriscos 
would be little enough for a general pardon with written 
confessions and remission of confiscation. They could not 
in conscience advise suspending confiscation for twenty- 
five or thirty years, as it would be offering impunity for 
transgression besides being repugnant to the canons ; it 
would be sufficient mercy to confiscate one-half of the 
property and give the other half to Catholic descendants, 
which would encourage the children to be good Catholics. 
They added that those who interceded for the Moriscos could 
readily induce them to accept this, but when the proposal 
was submitted to Mond6jarhe said it would not satisfy them.^ 
Charles wrote in reply from Metz, July 6, 1544, insist- 
ing on compliance with his orders ; his ambassador at 
Rome, Juan de Vega, had reported that he was obtaining 
the brief necessary for completing the arrangement. 
When Juan de Yega sent the brief, however, it proved 
to be very different from what the Moriscos had de- 
manded.^ Then a Mudejar Morisco named Antonio Ser- 

^ Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 926, fol. 81-2. 
^ A memorial concerning Vega's negotiations in Kome shows that 
Charles was earnestly endeavoring to obtain the powers necessary for 



NEGOTIATIONS FOB BELIEF, 221 

rano informed Tavera that the Moriscos would moderate 
their demands and be content with what was just and 
would pay the emperor a large subsidy^ if a commission 
was appointed to treat with them. Diego de Deza^ Bishop 
of Canaries^ then serving as judge in the chancellery of 
Granada^ was appointed and sent for the principal Mo- 
riscos^ who^ after obtaining permission from the Count of 
Tendilla^ said that they would content themselves with 
what was just and would pay Charles 200^000 ducats, 
but when Tendilla heard of the negotiation he set his 
friends among the Moriscos to work and broke it off, 
sparing neither threats nor promises. Then, in 1555, he 
proposed to the Moriscos that he should procure from 
the pope permission for them to confess to confessors of 
their own selection who should absolve them without 
solemnity or penance ; that the Emperor should waive 
the confiscations which they had incurred and that the 
Inquisition should be wholly suspended for forty years. 
He sent emissaries throughout the kingdom to explain 
the advantages of this and persuade the Moriscos to offer 
all the money they could, so as to furnish a good subsidy 
and recompense those who should intercede for them with 
Charles and the pope. The Inquisition took the alarm 
and interfered with the plan by prosecuting Tendilla^ s 
emissaries, and a long correspondence ensued between 

conceding the requests of the Moriscos. The cardinals to whom the 
affair was referred objected to the provisions for the future, regarding 
them as offering encouragement to sinners, and they desired to retain 
the penalty of burning for relapse. Many months were spent in discus- 
sion and finally a compromise was drawn up. — Ibid. fol. 86-7. 

It would not, I think, be doing injustice to the Inquisition to suggest 
that it had a hand in creating obstacles in the curia. It had a perma- 
nent agent in Eome to attend to its business. 



222 THE REBELLION OF GRANADA. 

Tendilla^ Prince Philip^ Guerrero, Archbishop of Gra- 
nada, and Valdes, then inquisitor-general.^ Meanwhile, in 
1549, letters passing between the Archbishop and Valdes 
show that an effort had been made to quiet the Moriscos 
by granting a term of grace in which some had come in 
and confessed. Another was conceded in 1553, when a 
commission was sent to the inquisitors, empowering them 
to absolve for relapse.^ 

After the abdication of Charles V. the Moriscos made 
another attempt by sending envoys to Philip II. in 
Flanders. They complained that Mondejar and Tendilla 
amused them with fair words, but their demands were 
still greater than before, for they added to their former 
requests that the seal of secrecy be removed from the 
prisons and the names of witnesses and that when they 
sinned they should not be prosecuted but be taught, in 
return for which they offered a subsidy of 100,000 ducats 
and a perpetual contribution of three thousand ducats a 
year for the support of the Inquisition. Philip referred 
the petition to the Suprema to report to him on his re- 
turn to Spain. Then the Moriscos asked licence to assem- 
ble for discussion and the appointment of delegates with 
full powers, but the Suprema in granting the permission 
required the meeting to be held in the presence of the 
archbishop, an inquisitor and the president and two 
judges of the chancellery, which was done and the powers 

^ Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 926, fol. 82-3. 

1 have no means of controlling these statements which are from an 
official report of the Suprema. Allowance should be made for the 
inveterate hostility between the Inquisition and the secular authorities 
which seems to have been peculiarly bitter in Granada. 

2 Ibid. Libro 4, fol. 174, 178, 214. 



INCREASING OPPRESSION 223 

were issued. Archbishop Guerrero earnestly urged Philip 
not to abandon the confiscations^ while the Moriscos con- 
tinued^ at least until the close of 1561, to besiege him 
with petitions to grant their request or at least such 
relief as had been afforded to those of Aragon and Val- 
ladolid.i 

The document from which these details are drawn ends 
here, but we may safely assume that nothing came of the 
effort of the Moriscos to obtain complete or partial relief 
from the Inquisition, and it is not unjust to infer from 
their persistence, and from a complaint of the expense to 
which they had been put in their journeys to the court in 
Flanders and elsewhere, that there were not lacking per- 
sons in high station who buoyed them up with false hopes 
in return for liberal donations. These transactions, how- 
ever fruitless, are not without their importance, in the 
absence of statistics concerning the activity of the Holy 
Office, as showing liow great was its pressure and how 
keenly felt by its victims. In every way, indeed, the 
condition of the Moriscos had been growing worse. The 
Inquisition, perhaps in retaliation for their efforts to re- 
strict it, became more rigorous than ever.^ All the old 
abuses and oppressions by the priests and the petty 
officers of justice were flourishing rankly and a further 
cause of intense irritation was the progressive spoliation 
of their lands by judicial process ; " judges of boundaries ^^ 
were established and claims were put forth in the name 
of the king by which they were deprived without a hear- 
ing of properties purchased or inherited from their ances- 

^ Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 926, fol. 83-4. 
^ Mendoza, Guerra de Granada, p. 71 (Biblioteca de Autores Espail- 
oles, Tom. XXI. ). 



224 THE REBELLION OF GRANADA, 

tors — they were in short " gente sin lengua j sin fabor '^ — 
friendless and defenceless/ 

Another fresh cause of trouble was the sudden revival^ 
about 1565^ of a dormant law of 1526 which deprived the 
lands of the feudal nobles of the right of asylum by ex- 
tending over them the royal jurisdiction^ and further 
reducing to three days the right of asylum in churches. 
There were numerous Moriscos who had made terms with 
their enemies and had settled on lands of nobles^ where they 
lived in peace supporting their families^ their crimes hav- 
ing been forgotten for years. The scriveners and justices, 
eager for fees, now examined the records for all the old 
cases and the alguaziles went in pursuit until there were 
scarce a Morisco in the land who did not live in daily 
fear of arrest. To this was added the oppression of the 
captain-general, of the archbishop and of the Inquisition, 
so that many peaceable men as well as criminals took to 
the mountains, joining the monfies or outlaws, and form- 
ing armed bands which committed many outrages that the 
ordinary justices could not prevent without soldiers. The 
suppression of these disorders naturally belonged to the 
captain-general, but there had been numerous competi- 
tions of jurisdiction between him and the judicial authori- 
ties which broke out afresh and the matter was confided 
to the President of the Chancellery, Alonso de Santillana, 
who formed squads of eight men to perform the duty, to 
whom extravagant pay was given and who were appointed 
from among the kindred and retainers of the president 
and alcaldes. They were useless and inexperienced, they 
exercised brutal licence at will and no one dared to com- 

1 Mendoza, loc, cit. 



FRESH PROVOCATIONS. 225 

plain of them. This drove many more Moriscos to the 
mountains or to Africa^ the bands of monfies increased and 
the relations of the Moriscos with Barbary were strength- 
ened.^ 

It was markedly imprudent thus to aggravate the dis- 
quiet of the kingdom for it had long been recognized that 
the condition of Granada was dangerously explosive. To 
cut off all intercourse witb it Moriscos from elsewhere 
had been prohibited from going there on any pretext, 
under pain of slavery^ which was a severe hardship, as the 
chancellery of Granada was the highest court for all the 
territories of New Castile, as that of Valladolid was for 
Old Castile, but when the cortes of Madrid, in 1551, peti- 
tioned that this prohibition should be relaxed in favor of 
those who had lawsuits or other pressing business, the 
prayer was refused — the risk of intercommunication was 
too great.^ The prudence which dictated this might 
have also dictated an effort to soothe discontent, in place 
of which fresh causes of trouble were sought. In 1563 
the order to present to the captain-general all licences to 
bear arms was revived, under a penalty of six years of 
galleys.^ The good Archbishop, Pedro Guerrero, on his 
return from the council of Trent in 1563, paused in 
Rome, where he lamented to Pius IV. that his Morisco 
flock were Christians only in name, and was commanded 
to tell King Philip that he should remedy it and save 
their souls, a message which was re-enforced by orders to 

^ Marmol Carvajal, p. 160. — Cabrera, Felipe Segondo, pp. 393, 429 
(Madrid, 1619).— Memoria de Mondejar, pp. 14-16 (Morel-Fatio, 
L'Espagne au XVI® et XVIIe Siecle).— Mendoza, p. 71.— Pedraza, 
fol. 239, 

2 Colmeiro, Cortes de Leon y Castilla, II. 245. ^ Danvila, p. 172. 

15 



226 THE REBELLION OF GEANADA. 

the Bishop of Rosano^ papal nuncio^ to labor with the 
king for their conversion. On reaching home Guerrero 
assembled his provincial council of 1565^ the action of 
which for the protection of the Moriscos was nugatory^ 
but that for their irritation was effective. The bishops 
agreed to urge the king to adopt such measures as might 
prevent them from longer concealing their infidelity^ and 
Guerrero accordingly wrote^ begging him to purify his 
kingdom of the filthy sect ; it could readily be found who 
were Christians by prohibiting some things by which they 
concealed their rites. The Archbishop of Valencia^ 
Tomas of Vilanova^ also wrote^ saying that he had re- 
fused the see of Granada in order not to be the pastor 
of so evil a flock^ but he had found that it was worse in 
Valencia.^ 

Diego de Espinosa, Philip^s evil genius^ was then rising 
high in favor. He had just been appointed to the presi- 
dency of the council of Castile ; he was shortly to be 
made inquisitor-general, Bishop of Siglienza and cardinal^ 
to die^ in 1572^ of mortification when the king reproached 
him severely with mendacity as to certain despatches 
from Flanders.^ In the present case he was stubbornly 
impracticable and^ as Cabrera says^ two priests^ caps 
wrought irreparable mischief in a matter which concerned 
helmets. To him^ with a junta of kindred spirits, includ- 
ing the Duke of Alva, Philip referred Guerrero^s memo- 
rial and the answer was that, assuming the Moriscos to 



^ Cabrera, Felipe Segondo^ p. 393. — Pedraza, fol. 238. 

^ Cabrera, op, cit. p. 699. Yet at his tomb Philip declared him to 
have been the best minister he had ever had — '^ Aqui esta enterrado et 
mejor ministro que he tenido en mis coronas. '' — Biblioteca Nacional, 
Seccion de MSS., li. 16. 



EDICT OF 1526 BEVIVED. 227 

be Christians by baptism^ they must be so in fact^ where- 
fore they must be ordered to abandon the garments, lan- 
guage and customs of Moors, to which end the edict of 
1526 should be revived and enforced, and this they sol- 
emnly charged upon the royal conscience. On this Philip 
consulted privately Dr. Otadui, professor of theology in 
Alcala and subsequently Bishop of Avila, who in his 
reply told the king that if any of the lords of the Moris- 
cos cited the old Castilian proverb, '' The more Moors the 
more profit ^^ he should remember that there was an older 
and truer one — ^^ The fewer enemies the better,^^ and he 
could combine the two into '' The more dead Moors the 
more profit, for there will be fewer enemies,^^ which we 
are told pleased Philip greatly.^ 

In the ecclesiastical atmosphere of Philip's court there 
could be no doubt as to the policy to be adopted. A 
pragmatica was speedily framed embodying the most 
offensive features of the edict of 1526 ; Pedro de Deza, 
a member of the junta and of the Suprema, was appointed 
president of the chancellery of Granada and was sent 
there May 4, 1566, with orders to publish and enforce it 
without listening to any remonstrances.^ Tendilla, now^ 

1 Cabrera, pp. 394, 466.— Pedraza, fol. 238-9. 

2 Deza's character is summed up in a letter of August 14, 1570, near 
the close of the rebellion, from Don John of Austria to his brother the 
king. — ^* V. M. must have heard from several sources that the methods 
of Deza with this people are very different from what they ought to be. 
The general opinion is that he was the great cause of the rebellion — so 
el Habaqui has told me — and the greatest obstacle to their reduction is 
their fear of being judged by him, of which I think there is no doubt. 
I entreat V. M. to consider carefully about him and give him a bish- 
opric or some other preferment and remove him from here, which is 
one of the things most desirable for the service of Y. M." — Coleccion 
de Doc. ined. XXYIII. 126. 



228 THE REBELLION OF GRANADA, 

Marquis of Mondejar^ with his thirty years^ experience 
as captain-general^ was not consulted or notified in ad- 
vance. Although he was at the court, the first intimation 
he had of it was an order conveyed through Espinosa to 
return to Granada and be present at the publication. 
He complained of the adoption of a measure of such im- 
portance without apprising him, he represented that the 
condition of Granada, destitute of troops and munitions, 
was not such as to justify putting a strain so severe on 
the loyalty of the Moriscos and he begged that either the 
measure be suspended or that he be furnished with forces 
to suppress the revolt that he foresaw. It was all in vain ; 
Espinosa curtly told him to go to his post and mind his 
own business. The Council of War supported him, but 
the Royal Council considered the judicial power sufficient 
to keep in subjection a despised race who were disarmed, 
unorganized and without military knowledge ; he was 
granted only three hundred soldiers to guard the coast, 
where he was ordered to reside during certain months of 
the year and to visit frequently.^ A crazy enterprise 
could scarce be undertaken with a crazier lack of foresight. 
May 25, 1566, Deza reached Granada with the fateful 
edict and at once assembled the court and took possession 
of his office. He had the articles printed so that they 
might be distributed everywhere in readiness for publica- 
tion on January 1, 1567, the anniversary of the capture 
of the city by Ferdinand and Isabella. There was a 
belief held by some at the time that the object in view 
was to drive the Moriscos to despair so as to make an 
end of them and the nature of the articles almost justifies 

1 Cabrera, p. 465.— Memoria de Mondejar (Morel-Fatio, p. 17).— 
Pedraza, fol. 239.— Marmol Carvajal, p. 167. 



EDICT OF 1566. 229 

such a theory, for there is nothing in them as to instruc- 
tion in religion while their whole tenor was a mere arbi- 
trary and exasperating interference with ancestral habits. 
The Moriscos were ordered to learn Castilian within three 
years, after which no one was to speak, read or write 
Arabic, either publicly or privately, and all contracts in 
that tongue should be invalid. All books in Arabic were 
to be delivered to Deza within thirty days ; such as he 
deemed innocent were to be returned to the owners for 
three years and no longer. No provision was made for 
instruction in Castilian, but Deza and Guerrero were 
ordered to adopt such measures as they deemed expedient. 
No garments were hereafter to be made in Moorish 
fashion ; existing ones, wholly or partly of silk, could be 
worn for a year and no longer, those of cloth for two 
years, and meanwhile women were to go with faces un- 
covered. Betrothal and marriage ceremonies and feasts 
must conform to the usages of the Church and, during 
their celebration, as well as on Friday afternoons and feast- 
days, the house doors must be kept open. Zambras and 
leilas — festivities with song and dance — even though not 
contrary to religion, were forbidden on Fridays and feast- 
days. Moorish names and surnames were not to be em- 
ployed and the staining with henna was to be abandoned. 
All artificial baths were to be destroyed, both public and 
private ones, and no one in future was to use them. No 
Morisco was to hold a Moorish slave, even though he 
had a licence to do so, and all licences to keep negro 
slaves were to be submitted to Deza for consideration.^ 

1 Marmol Carvajal, p 161-2.— Pedraza, fol. 239. 
A special law, without date, preserved in the Nueva Becopilacion (Lib. 
VIII. Tit. ii. ley 21) commands the destruction of all artificial baths 



230 THE REBELLION OF GRANADA, 

All this could only seem to the Moriscos a wanton and 
objectless exercise of power. Forty years before they 
had been similarly threatened and had succeeded in buy- 
ing themselves off and they doubtless expected to do so 
again, but now they had to deal with sterner and more 
impracticable bigots. Deza counselled with the archbishop 
as to the easiest method of enforcing the pragmatica and 
they called into service Canon Horozco, of the church of 
San Salvador, who was very friendly with the Moriscos 
and fluent in Arabic. By their instructions Horozco 
assembled the principal Moriscos, explained to them the 
new laws and promised them honors and offices from the 
king if they would induce their people to obedience, but 
they declared they would not dare to attempt it, for they 
would be stoned to death. A second attempt only found 
them firmer than before, although he used Deza^s name 
and argued that, as the king was resolved to enforce the 
measure, they had better get what advantage they could 
out of it.^ 

January 1, 1567, the pragmatica was formally pub- 
lished with great solemnity and produced among the 
Moriscos an indescribable excitement as its provisions 
became known. As an earnest of its enforcement, all 
baths were forthwith destroyed, commencing with those 
of the king. All the al jamas sent envoys to consult the 
Albaycin and all were unanimous that if relief were not 

in the kingdom of Granada. Anyone keeping or using them, either at 
home or elsewhere, is for a first offence to be imprisoned for fifty days 
in chains, with a fine of 10,000 maravedis and two years of exile ; for 
a second offence, double ; for a third, loss of half his property and five 
years of galleys. 

^ Marmol Carvajal, p. 161. 



THREATENING PROSPECTS, 231 

to be had by entreaty resort must be had to rebellion — it 
were better to die fighting for independence than to live 
under such tyranny. Deza himself was so impressed 
with the threatening prospect that he wrote to the court 
that precautions should be taken against a rising and 
during the year 1567 he mitigated in some degree the 
harshness of the law ; he did not allow any punishments 
under it and^ as the ordinary alguaziles were rude and in- 
sulting^ he substituted others with instructions to be cour- 
teous to the Moriscas whom they had to arrest for wearing 
veils. Meanwhile Don Juan Enriquez of Baza^ a man 
of high rank, consented to bear a memorial to the court 
and to labor for a suspension of the pragmatica, but was 
met by letters from Deza to Espinosa and the king say- 
ing that the Moriscos had been submissive but were 
becoming turbulent since he had espoused their cause. 
Philip referred the memorial to Espinosa, as President of 
Castile, who replied that no suspension could be enter- 
tained ; religious men had charged the king^s conscience, 
telling him he was responsible for the souls of the apos- 
tates. Then appeal was made to the Council of State, 
where the Duke of Alva and Luis de Avila, Grand 
Commander of Alcantara, were in favor of suspension 
and the council suggested a compromise of enforcing only 
one article a year, but Espinosa and Deza had more in- 
fluence than all the soldiers and statesmen in the royal 
councils.^ 

When the time came for abandoning silk garments, the 
archbishop instructed all priests to notify the Moriscos at 
high mass on New Yearns day of 1568 and Deza ordered 

^ Cabrera, p. 465. — Pedraza, fol. 240. — Marmol Carvajal, pp. 166, 
168. 



232 THE REBELLION OF GRANADA. 

the priests to take all children between three and fifteen 
years of age and place them in schools where they should 
be taught Christian doctrine and Castilian. This in- 
creased the agitation and a deputation was sent to remon- 
strate with Deza^ who assured them that the children 
were not to be taken from them^ but that the king was 
resolved to save their souls and to enforce the new laws.^ 
The Moriscos had come to the parting of the ways ; there 
was no middle course and they had the naked alternative 
of submission or rebellion. 

Rebellion at first sight seemed hopeless^ even to de- 
spair. They had been disarmed^ they had no military 
trainings no munitions of war^ no fortresses^ and but little 
money, while against them was the great Spanish mon- 
archy, regarded as the most powerful in the civilized 
world, with its navies on every sea and its armies in 
almost every land. But already the great Spanish mon- 
archy was little better than a shell, hollow within, not- 
withstanding its imposing outward appearance. All the 
relations of the Venetian envoys of the period dwell upon 
the absence of military resources in Spain, the difficulty 
of raising troops and the unfamiliarity with arms of those 
who made such splendid soldiers when disciplined and 
sent abroad. In this very year 1567, Antonio Tiepolo, 
when commenting upon the strange neglect which left the 
southern coasts unguarded to be ravaged by Barbary 
corsairs, expresses apprehension that an invasion from 
Africa, supported by the Moriscos, who are only Chris- 
tians in outward show, might expose the monarchy to the 
same dangers which it experienced of old.^ Spain had 

^ Marmol Carvajal, p. 167.— Pedraza, fol. 241. 
2 Kelazioni Venete, Serie I. T. V. p. 145. 



EXHA USTION OF SPAIN. 233 

been bled to exhaustion by Charles V. and Philip con- 
tinued the process. Fray Bleda points out that during 
the whole course of the ensuing war^ when every nerve 
was strained^ there never were a thousand horse brought 
together^ while Ferdinand and Isabella had twelve thou- 
sand at the siege of Malaga and as many at the conquest 
of Baza/ The financial condition was no bettor. Charles 
had left such a fearful accumulation of indebtedness that 
Philip^ on his accession^ seriously considered the expe- 
diency of repudiation^ and^ despite the treasures of the 
New World^ he staggered ever under an increasing bur- 
den ; his revenues were consumed in advance and when 
the rebellion was to be suppressed it was with difficulty 
that moderate sums could be provided for the most press- 
ing exigencies.^ That under such circumstances the sup- 
plies of arms and munitions should be deficient was a 
matter of course. 

The intelligent Moriscos of the Albaycin could not be 

^ Bleda, Cronica, p. 755. 

2 In the correspondence of Don John of Austria during the war his 
demands for money are incessant. Sept. 23, 1569 he says to Philip that 
every one is trying to hunt for it from some one else and it is got with 
so much difficulty that everything suffers. Oct. 4th he hopes that money 
will come to pay the soldiers and buy provisions ; without it nothing can 
be done. Feb. 19, 1570 he says that supplies of money are indispen- 
sable and about the same date he thanks Espinosa for promising to see 
that it is furnished for it is the one great necessity. July 6th he asks 
the favorite Ruy Gomez to see that the two things necessary — money 
and troops — are provided and Aug. 14th he tells Espinosa that what is 
necessary now is to have money, even if the king has to sell his patri- 
mony ; the 40,000 ducats coming are already eaten up. Aug. 29th he 
complains to Ruy Gomez that people at court seem to think that money 
is wanted only for the camp ; there are over-due debts to be paid and 
the garrisons — and so forth. — Coleccion de Doc. indd. XXVIII. 26, 31, 
49, 56, 58, 110, 113, 124, 133, 147. 



234 THE REBELLION OF GRANADA, 

wholly ignorant of all this, however it might be disre- 
garded by the clerical counsellors who were leading Philip 
to the precipice here, as they did with respect to the Low 
Countries. They knew that they had the natural for- 
tresses of the sierras to fall back upon, they hoped for 
effective aid from Turk and Moor, whose fighting qualities 
were fully equal to anything that Spain could show, they 
argued that there were 85,000 households which paid the 
impost of the farda, besides 15,000 concealed by the 
assessors, and that these could readily furnish 100,000 
fighting men, and they placed faith in three jofores or 
prophecies, handed down from the time of the conquest 
by Ferdinand and Isabella, from which they drew prom- 
ises of success.^ At the least, they could hope that a show 
of force might compel the suspension of the pragmatica. 
Marmol Carvajal tells us that the wealthier ones, while 
promising their concurrence, did not want a general rebel- 
lion but only a partial rising, by which they could attain 
this at the expense of the rude and ignorant mountaineers. 
However this may be, the agitation was stimulated and 
it was agreed that the rebellion should break out on Holy 
Thursday (April 15) 1568 ; this spread from one to 
another ; the monfies grew more audacious, marching 
openly with banners flying, robbing and murdering Chris- 
tians ; many friars and others among them notified the 
king of the increasing disquiet and accurate information 
was sent to the archbishop and to Mond6jar, who was 

^ The feelings and the hopes of the Moriscos are well depicted in a 
ballad by Mohammad ben Mohammad aben Daud, one of the leaders of 
the rising, intercepted in April, 1568, by Mond^jar and sent to the court 
with a translation by Alonso del Castillo. A version of it will be found 
in the Appendix No. XII. 



PREMONITIONS OF REBELLION. 235 

then at the court^ by Francisco cle Torrijos^ priest of 
Darrical, who spoke Arabic and had many friends among 
the Moriscos. Mondejar hastened to Granada^ where his 
son Tendilla was strengthening the Alhambra and arming 
the citizens^ seeing which the leaders of the Albaycin 
notified the mountaineers that the plot was discovered 
and that it must be abandoned. With a show of indig- 
nation they went to Deza and complained of being sus- 
pected^ offering to place two or three hundred of their 
chief men in prison as hostages. He pretended to be per- 
fectly assured of their loyalty ; as for hostages^ there was 
no need to offer them^ as he would take them whenever 
the king^s service required ; but as soon as the audience 
was over he sent for the alcaldes of the chancellery and 
told them to look up all prosecutions against Moriscos^ 
both as principals and as securities^ and arrest them 
gradually^ so that in a short time many of those suspected 
were thrown in prison. He also ordered the seizure of 
all cross-bows and arquebusses belonging to those who 
held licences.^ 

It illustrates the tension of the public mind that; on 
the night of April 16th; an accident caused a false alarm 
that the Albaycin had risen. The women rushed to the 
churches and the Alhambra^ while the men assembled in 
arms. The corregidores placed guards on the streets lead- 
ing to the Albaycin, but this, we are told, would not have 
restrained the rapacity of the Christians who were eager 
to sack it, but for the fact that rain was falling in torrents 
rendering the streets almost impassable. The alarm 
proved groundless but as a precaution for the future the 

^ Marmol Carvajal, pp. 169, 174. — Cabrera, p. 468. 



236 THE REBELLION OF GUANABA. 

people were armed and organized.^ About the same 
time a letter from the Moriscos to the King of Fez was in- 
tercepted^ asking for assistance. Mondejar forwarded this 
to the king, begging him either to send troops or to suspend, 
or at least moderate, the rigor of the pragmatica, but Philip 
relied on Deza^s reports that the Moriscos were submissive 
and that no danger was to be expected ; he ordered the 
enforcement of the pragmatica and provided no troops." 

Under the appearance of submission, organization and 
preparation were carried on industriously and a rising 
was determined upon for Christmas night, when the 
people would be in the churches and prolonged darkness 
would enable the mountaineers to reach the city undis- 
covered. Only twenty-five guards had been provided for 
the Albaycin, which had been taken out of Mondejar^s 
hands, so there was little to prevent a terrible catastrophe. 
December 23d risings commenced in the sierras and in a 
few days 182 places had revolted ; the churches were dese- 
crated, the priests and such Christians as could be seized 
were tortured and slain, while the women and children 
were kept to be sent to Barbary in exchange for arms and 
munitions. Eight thousand men were enrolled in the 
Vega to enter the Albaycin and lay waste the city with 
fire and sword. The plot was well planned, but at the 
last moment the leaders in the Albaycin thought that it 
had been discovered and sent word to postpone it. In 
spite of this Farax aben Farax, one of the most resolute 
of them, gathered a hundred and fifty monfies with whom 
he broke open one of the gates, killed one or two of the 
guards and endeavored ineffectually to arouse his country- 

^ Marmol Carvajal, p. 176. 

2 Ibid. p. 179.— Memorial de Mondejar (Morel-Fatio, p. 19). 



OUTBREAK OF REBELLION, 237 

men, although he proclaimed that the Kings of Morocco 
and Algiers had landed. He remained unmolested all 
night and departed in the morning. The corregidor had 
been able to assemble but twenty-three men, while Mon- 
dejar, in the Alhambra, had but a hundred and forty foot 
and fifty horse — a small garrison for the fortress, which 
he dared not abandon, the whole affair showing how 
easily the Moriscos might have succeeded had they car- 
ried out their designs.^ 

The rebellion was now fairly on foot. It speedily pro- 
vided itself with a king in the person of Don Hernando 
de Cordova y de Valor, a descendant of the Abderra- 
hamanes, the old kings of Cordova. He was a veinte- 
cuatro, or town-councillor of Granada, and at the time a 
prisoner in his house for drawing a dagger in the council ; 
he was rich but a spendthrift and angered at the impris- 
onment of his father for a crime, in revenge for which he 
had killed the accuser and some of the witnesses. He 
fled to the mountains and was solemnly crowned Decem- 
ber 29th at Andarax, when he assumed the name of 
Aben Humeya ; he endeavored to restrain the slaughter 
of Christians ; he became unpopular and after a reign 
of nine mouths he was strangled by his Turkish and 
Algerine auxiliaries, who replaced him with Abdallah 
Abenabo. With his last breath he declared that he died 
a Christian ; he had revolted in order to obtain revenge 
on those who had persecuted his father, he had glutted 
his vengeance and w^as content to die.^ 

^ Marmol Carvajal, pp. 181-5. — Cabrera, pp. 537-40. — Memoria de 
Mondejar, p. 19. 

2 Cabrera, pp. 501,547.— Marmol Carvajal, pp. 187, 292.~Mendoza, 
pp. 74, 102. 



238 THE REBELLION OF GRANADA. 

The news that came pouring in from all quarters and 
was brought by the scouting parties which Mondejar sent 
out showed that the whole land was ablaze. He had been 
left destitute of resources to meet the emergency which 
he had foreseen and he could expect no co-operation from 
Deza or the local authorities with whom he was in bitter 
discord. Deza^ in fact^ at once seized the opportunity to 
humiliate and embarrass him by writing to the Adelan- 
tado of Murcia^ the Marquis of los Velez^ his hereditary 
enemy^ to raise the militia of Murcia and attack the 
Moriscos^ which was a direct invasion of Mond^jar's ter- 
ritory. Los Velez^ who was ambitious^ arrogant and 
opinionated and who entertained a deadly hatred of the 
Moriscos^ who called him '' the devil with the iron head/^ 
eagerly took advantage of the invitation ; he raised troops 
at his own expense, thrust himself into the war and mis- 
managed it at every turn, but he was a favorite of the 
king, who supported him through it all.^ 

The military system of Spain, inherited from the time 
when the conquests were settled by the conquerors, re- 
quired the communities and towns to furnish troops when 
called upon. These were known as concegiles — raised by 
the town-councils ; they were obliged to serve at their own 
cost for as long as they could subsist on the rations car- 
ried in their knapsacks, which was reckoned as a week ; 
after this they served three months, paid by their com- 
munities, and then six months more, paid half by the 
latter and half by the king ; when they returned home, 
others were sent. They were necessarily raw and undis- 
ciplined and, through long internal peace, so unused to 

^ Marmol Carvajal, pp. 207, 230.— Mendoza, p. 77.— Morel-Fatio, p. 

275. 



CHARACTER OF THE WAR. 239 

weapons that the Venetian envoy in 1570 tells us that 
many were afraid to discharge their arquebusses. As 
the pay was uncertain it was impossible to control them 
or make them stay by the colors, and their principal 
motive in serving was the prospect of booty. By a 
custom dating from the earliest times^ the spoils were 
sold and the proceeds distributed, reserving one-fifth for 
the king, but it was found more inspiriting to give to 
each what he had captured and the fifth to all. But, as 
Mendoza remarks, this degenerates into greed ; every one 
holds what he gets and to guard it abandons his duty ; 
some let themselves be killed, overburdened and weak- 
ened by it, others desert and go home with it.^ So it 
was throughout the war ; armies disintegrated more rap- 
idly after a victory than after a defeat ; we hear of whole 
companies marching away and beating off those sent to 
detain them. The war degenerated into a pandemonium 
of massacre and pillage ; nothing could restrain the fero- 
cious rapacity of the troops ; the armies were followed by 
merchant adventurers ready to buy on the spot whatever 
was brought in — goods or cattle or slaves — and in fact 
many of the so-called military movements were merely 
slave-hunts. There had been a question, indeed, at first, 
whether prisoners, who were at least nominally Christians, 
could be enslaved, and in Madrid there were superservice- 
able lawyers and theologians who denied it, but the king 
referred the matter to Deza and his court who promptly 
decided in the affirmative, whereupon the king issued a 
pragmatica to that effect, humanely excepting boys under 
10 and girls under 11, who were to be given in charge to 

^ Mendoza, pp. 77, 96.— Eelazioni Yenete, Serie I. T. V. p. 163. 



240 THE REBELLION OF GRANADA, 

Christians for support and instruction in the faith^ but no 
attention was paid to this exception.^ As a rule the men 
were slaughtered and the women and children brought in 
droves^ sometimes of tw^o thousand or more^ to the auc- 
tion block. For many years thereafter the tribunals of 
the Inquisition throughout Spain were occupied with trials 
of slaves from the sierras of Granada. 

Such were the conditions under which Mondejar had to 
meet the crisis which burst upon Granada on the morning 
of December 27^ 1568. He met it with resolute energy. 
He was eminently suited to the work in hand^ for his 
thirty years' experience as captain-general gave him an 
accurate knowledge of the country and its people ; he 
was trained to vigorous discipline^ accustomed to com- 
mand and impatient of contradiction ; he was self-reliant, 
kept his own counsel and admitted few to his confidence.^ 
He needed these qualities for he was without men, money, 
artillery, munitions and provisions. He forthwith sum- 
moned the cities of Andalusia to furnish their quotas, but 
they were tardy in obeying, for there had been repeated 
false alarms before ; the contractors in Malaga were 
ordered to buy up all the provisions they could and to 
furnish powder, lead and matches ; the coast defences 
were looked to ; the municipal authorities armed and 
organized the citizens, and by January 2d a little army, 
drawn from the city and its vicinity, was on foot. His 

1 Marmol Carvajal, p. 247. There seems to have been some special 
royal claim on slaves. Mondejar alludes (Memoria, p. 47) to about a 
thousand women, the survivors of a massacre at Jubiles, who were sent 
to Granada, sold at auction, and the proceeds handed to the royal 
officials. 

2 Mendoza, p. 84. 



MONDE JAB'S SUCCESS, 241 

first experience was an earnest of much that was to come. 
The bridge over the deep gorge at Tablate was the key 
to the sierras ; to secure this important point he had sent 
Diego de Quesada with a few hundred raw and undisci- 
plined men ; they scattered to pkmder, the Moriscos set 
upon them and Quesada had difficulty in escaping with 
the remnant of his forces. The recapture of the bridge 
was indispensable and^ on January 3d^ Mond^jar set out 
on his campaign with 2500 foot and 250 horse^ to which 
were added^ the next day^ reinforcements of 2000 more. 
When Tablate was reached it was found that the Moriscos 
had so dismantled the bridge that but one man could cross 
at a time and this with no little danger. They were in 
force on the farther side and the army paused in hesita- 
tion^ till a friar rushed forward, a crucifix in one hand 
and a sword in the other^ and boldly led the way. Two 
men followed him^ one of whom fell from the narrow 
timbers and was dashed to pieces on the rocks below. 
Then others took hearty and^ covered by the fire of the 
arquebusiers^ enough got across to drive away the enemy ; 
the bridge was secured and repaired.^ 

It is not necessary to follow in detail Mondejar^s short 
but brilliant campaign. Through heavy snows and intense 
cold and over almost inaccessible mountains he fought 
battle after battle^ giving the enemy no respite and fol- 
lowing up every advantage gained. The Moriscos speedily 
lost heart and sought terms of surrender. Already^ by 
January 18th, the priest Torrijos brought to him at Jubiles 
seventeen of the principal alguaziles or magistrates of the 
sierra, who threw themselves at his feet, offered to sur- 

^ Memoria de Mondejar, pp. 23-4. — Marmol Carvajal, p. 227. 

16 



242 THE REBELLION OF GRANADA, 

render at discretion and begged his intercession. He 
received them kindly^ promised them security and or- 
dered that no harm should befall them, for the soldiers, 
eager for booty, were bent on prolonging the war, and 
murmured loudly when he gave the envoys safe-conducts 
and sent them back with instructions to tell their people 
to return to their homes. His object was to pacify the 
land as speedily as possible, and, while he granted letters 
of security to all places which submitted, he relaxed 
nothing in the vigor of his military operations ; he 
ordered that no prisoners should be taken and at the 
Guajaras, in revenge for a preliminary reverse, by his 
command there was a general massacre, without sparing 
age or sex. He justified this on the ground that the 
contrast between kindness for submission and cruelty 
for resistance was the surest mode of bringing peace. 
By the middle of February the rebellion was practically 
suppressed. Aben Humeya was a wanderer, hiding in 
caves by day and seeking shelter at night in houses 
which had letters of surety. Of the 182 places that 
had risen every one submitted at discretion, except 
Valor el alto which was depopulated. One of the con- 
ditions was the surrender of arms, to be deposited in 
designated churches, and to these he sent the priest 
Torrijos with twenty men to bring them in, a mission 
which was accomplished peacefully and seventy loads of 
them were taken to the Alhambra. His orders were 
obeyed more promptly than before the rising ; when he 
sent to arrest some who had not submitted and were 
especially guilty, they were brought in by dozens through 
the mountains and were executed without a finger lifted 



SUBMISSION OF THE MO RISC OS. 243 

in their behalf. Pacification was complete except when 
bands of Christian marauders traversed the country^ mur- 
dering and despoiling.^ 

Perhaps the most signal instance of submission concerns 
an incident too characteristic to be omitted. At the cap- 
ture of Jubiles^ January 18th^ the non-combatants, who 
had taken refuge in the castle, surrendered to the number 
of 300 men and 2100 women. They were brought down 
to the town and the women were placed for safety in 
the church, but, as it held only about one-half, the rest 
bivouacked in the gardens with guards around them. 
During the night a soldier tried to carry off a girl ; a 
young Morisco in female dress defended her with a 
dagger and wounded a soldier, others crowded in with 
the result that in a wild tumult all the prisoners were 
butchered save those in the church, who were saved only 
by barricading the doors. The next day three of the 
ringleaders of the massacre were hanged and Mond^jar 
distributed the surviving prisoners among their kindred 
to be fed and kept till he should call for them. When 
the district was pacified he demanded them and their 
husbands and fathers unresistingly delivered them up to 
be sold into slavery. There could, as he says, be no 
greater proof of obedience than bringing their wives and 
children from the furthest points of the Alpujarras to 
such a fate. It was not without pardonable pride that 
he boasted of having accomplished all this with insuffi- 
cient forces in the space of a little over two months at a 
cost of fifteen thousand ducats, a large portion of which 

^ Marmol Carvajal, pp. 234-48.— Mendoza, pp. 82-4. — Memoria de 
Mondejar, pp. 45-6. 



244 THE REBELLION OF GRANADA, 

was defrayed by the royal fifths of the spoils and the 
sale of the slaves of Jubiles.^ 

His dream of pacification however was rudely broken. 
Philip's system of government concentrated all power in 
the crown and distributed authority among subordinates 
independent of each other^ whose mutual jealousies ren- 
dered concerted action impossible and whose jarring poli- 
cies required constant reference to the king for ultimate 
and dilatory decision. There were too many interests 
and hatreds and ambitions seething around Granada for 
any wise and consistent line of action to be followed. 
When Mond6jar reported to los Velez the arrangements 
he was making for pacification^ the latter haughtily re- 
plied that he intended to carry on the war to the bitter 
end. He had rightfully no authority in Mond6jar's ter- 
ritory, but he had been invited by Deza^ who had no 
power to do so^ and his vanity was inflated by a victory 
which he had won at Felix, killing seven hundred 
Moriscos with the loss of only a few men, a victory 
which emphasizes the character of the struggle between 
his well-armed soldiers and the poor wretches who were 
struggling for their rights, for we are told that the 
Morisco women fought desperately, endeavoring to stab 
the horses of the cavaliers with knives, while those who 
had no other weapons gathered handfuls of dust to cast 
in the faces of the Christians and blind them.^ 

1 Marmol Carvajal, pp. 235, 239.— Memoria de Mondejar, pp. 47,53. 

2 Marmol Carvajal, pp. 236, 239.— Cabrera, pp. 560, 561.— So in 
Mondejar's campaign at Pitres, on January 16th, the Moriscos attacked 
his camp under cover of a fog and got so near that the stones they 
threw by hand reached the parade ground of the camp, but when the 
fog lifted the arquebusiers drove them back. — Marmol Carvajal, p. 232. 



BRIGANDAGE OF THE TBOOPS. 245 

There was bitter opposition to peace also among the 
lawless and undisciplined soldiery whose ferocious greed 
was not to be satiated. It was impossible to make them 
respect Mondejar's letters of safety. Thus^ under pretext 
of capturing Aben Humaya^ Bernardino de Villalta ob- 
tained three companies from Tendilla with which he 
made a raid on Laroles^ a place under safeguard^ where 
many of the pacified Moriscos had taken refuge ; he car- 
ried off a multitude of women and much other booty and 
when Monde] ar proposed to punish him he pleaded that 
he had found fighting men there and was allowed to sell 
the women as slaves. Even worse was what occurred at 
Valor el bajo^ where Aben Humaya was reported to be 
concealed. Mondejar sent a force there under Alvaro 
Flores and Antonio de Avila with orders to require his 
surrender and to summon those who had harbored him to 
appear for trial. When the troops reached the village^ 
the chief men came out, exhibited their safeguard and 
asked what was required of them, for they would obey. 
In reply the Spaniards fell upon them, killing about two 
hundred — in fact all who did not escape to the moun- 
tains while the troops were pillaging and gathering in 
the women and children. The men organized and came 
down ; they asked whether Mondejar had given orders to 
sack the place, for if so they would submit, but as no such 
orders could be shown they attacked the soldiers encum- 
bered with spoils, routed them, killed Antonio de Avila, 
recovered their women and gained a quantity of arms. 
Then they sent a deputation to Mondejar to exculpate 
themselves and offered to return the arms ; he was in- 
clined to listen to them, which excited furious indignation 



246 THE REBELLION OF GBANADA. 

and bitter complaints were sent to the king against 
him.^ 

These outrages by a licentious and brutal soldiery had 
a double effect. In more than one instance the Moriscos 
had the advantage over the marauders which encouraged 
them and supplied them with arms. They found more- 
over that Mondejar^s safeguards were not respected^ that 
they had gained nothing by submission and that their 
only chance of safety lay in taking to the mountains and 
defending themselves^ so that Aben Humaya^ in place 
of being a fugitive in hiding, speedily gathered an army 
of four thousand men. Even more disastrous however 
was the effect upon the policy of the court. Mond^jar^s 
enemies — Deza, the inquisitors, the municipal authorities 
of Granada and those whose interests lay in the prolon- 
gation of the war, or who sought the extermination of the 
Moriscos — had never ceased to calumniate him to Espinosa 
and to Philip. He held large possessions in Granada 
and he was represented as actuated solely by the desire to 
preserve their value, his successes were belittled and those 
of los Velez extolled. When, therefore, he reported to 
Philip the pacification of the land and asked for instruc- 
tions whether to show clemency to the vanquished or to 
punish them with rigor, he was told, March 17th, that it 
had been determined to send Don John of Austria, the 
king's half-brother, to Granada to take supreme command ; 
he was to return to the city himself, leaving a competent 
force in the Alpuj arras, while the whole eastern portion 
of the kingdom was placed under los Velez. ^ This was 

^ Marmol Carvajal, pp. 250, 253. — Mendoza, p. 86. — Memoria de 
Monddjar, p. 47. 

^ Mendoza, pp. 84-5, 87.— Marmol Carvajal, p. 251. — Memoria de 
Mondejar, p. 48. 



DON JOHN OF A USTEIA. 247 

virtually relieving him in disgrace. He obeyed and with 
his absence there followed general licence. No check was 
placed on the disorders o£ the troops^ stimulated by those 
who desired to see the peaceable Moriscos driven to rebel- 
lion^ by those who had interest in increasing the troubles 
and by the ministers of justice who were impatient for 
the time of punishment. The Yega was ready to rise and 
whole towns and neighborhoods passed over to the rebels 
unable to endure the robberies and murders and outrages 
on women.^ 

Great preparations were made to give Don John a force 
which befitted his dignity and should speedily crush all re- 
sistance. The towns and cities were summoned to furnish 
their quotas and the Spanish ambassador at Eome^ Don 
Luis de Requesenes, was ordered to bring the Italian 
galleys to Spain^ to aid the home squadron in guarding 
the coast and intercepting succors from Africa^ and also 
to convey the ^6rc*o of Naples^ of about three thousand 
regular troops.^ These elaborate preparations^ however, 
were neutralized by the jealous care with which all initia- 
tive was hampered. Don John was an inexperienced 
youth, of about twenty -four, eager to win distinction, but 
modest, affable, distrustful of his own abilities, w^ho felt 
himself surrounded by pitfalls and who chafed against 
the orders which strictly forbade him to take the field in 
person.^ He brought with him as his chief counsellor his 
former tutor, Luis Quijada, a man of high military reputa- 

^ Mendoza, p. 89. 

^ Marmol Carvajal, p. 257. — Mendoza, p. 89. 

^ His correspondence at this time gives a most favorable impression 
of his character. See Coleccion de Doc. ined. T. XXYIII. pp. 8-11, 

60, 72, 86, 92. 



248 THE REBELLION OF GRANADA. 

tion^ and was soon joined by Gonzalo Hernandez de Cor- 
dova^ Duke of Sesa^ grandson of the Great Captain^ who 
had been viceroy of Milan and had acquitted himself well 
in the Lombard wars. These^ with Mondejar^ Deza and 
Archbishop Guerrero formed his council, without whose 
advice he was to do nothing. Quijada was rough and ob- 
stinate and wedded to the traditions of Charles Y. Sesa 
knew only the well-paid regular troops of Italy and Flan- 
ders. Mondejar was trained to the limitations of the local 
militia, serving with little pay, but not to open war. Deza 
and Guerrero knew nothing. Then los Velez and Sesa, 
although uncle and nephew, had a standing quarrel, which 
bred suspicions and rendered cordial co-operation between 
them impossible. To crown all, nothing was to be done 
without referring the matter to Madrid and awaiting in- 
structions. The results of this impracticable mode of 
carrying on war soon made themselves apparent.^ 

Don John arrived at Granada, April 12th, and had a 
magnificent reception, including a parade of ten thousand 
troops. The most significant feature, however, was a pro- 
cession of four hundred women, whom Mondejar had res- 
cued from the Moriscos of the Alpujarras, and who now 
were marshalled by his enemies to appeal to Don John 
for vengeance for their murdered husbands and fathers 
and to tell him that they felt less grief for their losses 
than for seeing the murderers pardoned.^ After awaiting 
the arrival of Sesa, Don John held his first council, April 
2 2d. Mondejar proposed three alternative lines of policy ; 

^ Mendoza, p. 91. — Marmol Carvajal, p. 251. — Coleccion de Doc. 
in^d. XXyill. 8. 

2 Marmol Carvajal, p. 257. — Historia de la Casa de Mondejar (Morel. 
Fatio, p. 91). 



BEVIVAL OF THE REBELLION. 249 

Deza declared that they must begin by removing to places 
further inland all the Moriscos of the Albaycin^ the Vega 
and the sierra and then placate God for the sacrileges 
committed^ by inflicting exemplary punishment^ com- 
mencing with those of Albunuela^ who under pretext 
of having submitted^ were robbing the Christians. These 
conflicting opinions led to prolonged discussions during 
which nothing was done ; the campaign went to pieces ; 
the pacified Moriscos^ reduced to despair by the with- 
drawal of Monde jar^ sent back their safeguards and with- 
drew their oaths of allegiance and with them went many 
places that had previously remained loyal. Military 
operations degenerated into sporadic raids for plunder in 
which the marauders more than once were cut to pieces^ 
giving both arms and encouragement to the rebels. 
Granada was virtually besieged^ for the Moriscos ra- 
vaged the Vega up to the gates. Los Velez had been 
furnished independently by Philip with an army of 
twelve thousand men^ with which he remained virtually 
inactive until it dwindled away to 1000 foot and 200 
horse^ — he claimed because the necessary provisions were 
not supplied^ while Don John stoutly declared that he 
had been furnished with all that he required. The 
rebellion^ which had hitherto been confined to the Alpu- 
j arras and Sierra Nevada^ spread on the one side to the 
mountains of Almeria and on the other to those of 
Malaga. The whole land was aflame and it looked as 
though the power of Spain was inadequate to extinguish 
the conflagration.^ 

1 Marmol Carvajal, pp. 258-9, 283-6, 303. — Mendoza, pp. 91-2.— 
Historia de la Casa de Mondejar, p. 90. — Coleccion de Doc. ined. 
XXVIII. 13, 17, 18, 19, 22. 



250 THE REBELLION OF OBANADA, 

In all this disaster Deza at least had the satisfaction 
of seeing his policy carried out. June 1st an expedition 
was sent against Albunuela^ the pacified town which he 
wanted destroyed. The troops killed all the men who 
did not escape and brought back fifteen hundred women 
and children whom Don John divided among the soldiers 
as slaves.^ His other favorite measure, the depopulation 
of the Albaycin, occupied the council to the exclusion of 
planning military operations. As the danger of the rebel- 
lion from without grew greater, the more pressure was 
there to get rid of presumable enemies within. At 
length Philip was induced to issue an order to transfer 
to Andalusia and elsewhere all the Moriscos of the city 
and Albaycin over ten years of age and under sixty; 
they were to be delivered to the justicias of the designated 
places, with lists so that they might all be accounted for, 
and to induce them to go peaceably they were to be told 
that it was for their safety and that when peace should 
come they would be taken care of and those who were 
loyal rewarded. By this time Granada was well garris- 
oned with troops under royal pay ; they were put under 
arms and, on June 23d, Don John issued a proclamation 
that all the men of the Albaycin should assemble in their 
parish churches, to which they replied that they would 
not leave their houses alive. This had been done with- 
out the knowledge of Mondejar, who had always opposed 
the proposition, but Don John sent for him and expressed 
his intention of putting them all to the sword. In the 
narrow hilly streets of the Albaycin this would have been 
a desperate expedient, and Mondejar dissuaded him. The 

1 Marmol Carvajal, p. 272. 



EXPULSION COMMENCED. 251 

council was summoned and could suggest nothing to ex- 
tricate Don John from his awkward position until Mon- 
de jar offered to persuade the Moriscos to submit. With 
his guard of thirty halberdiers and his son Francisco, he 
proceeded to the plaza of Bib el Bonut, summoned the 
leaders and induced them to comply with the order. He 
remained till they were all in the churches, locked the 
doors, placed his halberdiers on guard and returned to 
Don John, telling him to send additional troops and'pro- 
visions and to give orders that they w^ere to be well treated 
and that no house should be entered. The next day they 
were transferred to the great Hospital Real, a gunshot 
from the city. Then lists were made out, they were 
divided up into gangs with their hands tied to ropes, 
like galley-slaves, and were marched off to their destina- 
tions under guard of foot and horse. The women w^ere 
left for a time in their houses to sell their effects and 
follow to support^ their husbands. The number of men 
thus deported was 3500 ; that of the women considerably 
greater. Even the chroniclers are moved to pity in de- 
scribing the misery and despair of the unfortunates thus 
torn suddenly from their homes, forced without warning 
to leave everything behind them and hurried off to the 
unknown. Many died on the road of grief, of weariness, 
of hunger, or were slain by those set to protect them, or 
were robbed and sold as slaves. It relieved the people 
of fear, we are told, but it was most distressing to see the 
destruction of prosperity and the vacuity left where there 
had been so much life and industry.^ 

^ Historia de la Casa de Mondejar, p. 93. — Marmol Carvajal, p. 277. 
— Mendoza, p. 92. 



252 i^HE hebellion of geanada. 

Thus matters dragged on through the summer and 
autumn of 1569. On September 3d Mondejar was sum- 
moned to the court and disappears henceforth from the 
scene^ for he took no further part in the war.^ His 
absence relieved the other members of the council^ but 
as his advice had never been followed it made no other 
difference. It was in the highest degree fortunate for 
Spain that the Mahometan powers took no advantage of 
the dreary struggle^ contenting themselves with expres- 
sions of good-will for the rebels and granting permission 
to such of their subjects as desired to go to their assist- 
ance. Under this some six or eight hundred went and 
formed a most valuable nucleus for the Morisco armies. 
Arms and munitions were likewise sent across from 
Africa as objects of trade and it seemed impossible for 
the Spanish navy to prevent the free communication 
between the coasts. 

At lengthy on October 19th^ Philip issued two edicts. 
The first one characteristically ordered the removal from 
the Albaycin of some remnants that had been left there 
— old men and children^ mechanics and laborers whose 
services were valuable^ and Mudejares who had claimed 
that they were not included in the earlier measure. The 
second edict was more serious. The forces which had been 

^ This recall was virtually in disgrace, though softened in terms by 
the alleged reason of desiring his advice. He remained nominally 
captain-general until 1572, when he was appointed viceroy of Valencia 
and from there he was transferred to Naples, one of the most distin- 
guished posts under the crown. The promotion however was only ap- 
parent. The viceroyalties were held for an uncertain and usually short 
term of years, while the captain-generalate of Granada had been for 
life and heritable. Probably Philip was glad of an opportunity to 
break up a system which gave such power to great nobles. 



BENE WEB EFFORTS. 253 

raised for Don John and los Velez in the springs had melted 
away without checking the progress of the rebellion and it 
had become a problem how to replace them. The king 
therefore now proclaimed a guerra a fuego y a sangre, 
for hitherto the official talk had been about punishing a 
rebellion. At the same time he conceded campo 
franco to the soldiers — that is^ that every man should 
enjoy whatever plunder he could get^ whether slaves^ 
cattle or property^ without paying a fifth to the com- 
mander^ so as to animate the dispirited people who had 
been much scandalized by the complaints of the deserters 
from los Velez. He also increased the pay to that of 
service in Italy — four gold crowns a month for the 
arquebusier and cuirassier and three for the pikeman. 
Further^ as the cities and nobles throughout Spain w^ere 
exhausted by paying their men, and as the octroi which 
they had laid on provisions did not suffice, Philip, in 
calling upon thena again to fill up their companies and 
increase them, offered to pay the infantry while they 
should pay the horse. These measures we are told pro- 
duced great results, but their necessity reveals how 
slender were the resources of the monarchy. Efforts, 
not very successful, were likewise made to reform the 
corruption which rendered the army inefficient through 
padded muster rolls and indescribable fraud in the com- 
missariat and contracts for arms and munitions, and thirty- 
two captains were cashiered.^ 

This was in preparation for a final effort, and to give 
it greater assurance of success Philip at last yielded to 
Don John's urgency and gave him permission to take 

^ Marmol Carvajal, pp. 292, 309.— Mendoza, p. 107. 



254 THE REBELLION OF GBANADA. 

the field in person. This in itself aided in swelling the 
forces, for numbers of nobles and gentlemen, eager to 
distinguish themselves in the presence of the king's 
brother, came as volunteers with their retainers. In 
December everything was ready for the campaign planned 
to recapture Galera and the valley of the Almanzora in 
the eastern portion of the kingdom, but before starting 
it was necessary to take Gu6jara from which a Morisco 
garrison annoyed the city. A force of 9000 foot and 
700 horse was collected for this enterprise, when it was 
delayed by a characteristic incident. The command of 
the city contingent belonged by custom to the Count 
of Tendilla, but at the last moment it was claimed by 
Juan Rodriguez de Yillafuerte, the corregidor who was a 
special enemy of Mondejar. Over this matter the council 
wrangled without being able to reach a decision ; it 
had to be referred to Madrid and the answer awaited, 
which of course was in favor of Villafuerte. The expe- 
dition, which started December 23d, was somewhat ludi- 
crous. Spies had reported the garrison of Guejara at 
6000 arquebusiers ; a reconnoissance reduced the number 
to 4000 ; in reality there were but 120 Turks and Ber- 
bers and 430 natives, who had had ample warning and 
who discreetly retired in time with all the portable prop- 
erty. Don John returned to Granada a wiser man and 
he treasured up the lesson to see and think and act for 
himself.^ 

He finally started December 29th and by January 19, 
1570, he was in front of Galera with 12,000 men. Feb- 
ruary 21st, the Duke of Sesa followed with 8000 foot 

1 Mendoza, p. 109, — Marmol Carvajal, p. 306. 



SUPPRESSION OF THE REBELLION. 255 

and 350 horse for a campaign in the Alpujarras, leaving 
Deza in command at Granada as captain-general with 
4000 men to guard the city.^ Spain had strained every 
nerve and had raised an overwhelming force to accom- 
plish what Mondejar had done with a few thousand men 
a twelvemonth earlier. It is not necessary to follow the 
vicissitudes of the campaign^ in which the vicious inepti- 
tude of los Velez and the incompetence of Sesa were bal- 
anced by the rapid development of Don John^ in spite of 
the tutelage in which he was kept and the meddlesome 
interference from Philip. The war was carried on with 
vigor^ though with the same rapacity and brutality. At 
the storming of Galera Don John gave no quarter to the 
men and had four hundred women and children butch- 
ered in cold blood because their captors endeavored to 
secure them for themselves^ while forty-five hundred 
others were preserved as slaves ; soon afterwards^ at 
Seron^ he lost his tutor Luis Quijada with a third of his 
force and a thousand arquebusses and swords because his 
men scattered to plunder.^ He was subject to the same 
difficulties as his predecessors from the worthless quality 
of his troops. After reducing the valley of the Alman- 
zora^ on his return to Guadix he writes^ August 8th^ to 
Philip that he will endeavor to collect forces to enter the 
Alpujarras in obedience to instructions^ but at present he 
has but 1200 men. On June 7th he had called the hinges 
attention to the manner in which certain frailes^ especially 
in Granada and Guadix^ inveighed in the pulpit against 
the benignity and clemency which the king had com- 
manded to be shown to these people. It is a matter, 

^ Mendoza, p. 111. — Marmol Carvajal, p. 310. 
2 Marmol Carvajal, pp. 314, 316. 



256 THE REBELLION OF GRANADA. 

he addS; of profound regret that a point has been reached 
in which the soldiers who should fight are given to rob- 
bing and running away and the religious, who ought to 
intercede for these miserable people, the greater part of 
whom have sinned through ignorance, exert themselves 
to decry clemency and impudently interfere with matters 
foreign to them/ 

The whole tragedy had been the result of clerical in- 
terference, but it is difficult to appreciate in what even 
the ferocious bigotry of the frailes could complain of 
Philip's so-called clemency, for only universal massacre 
would have been more cruel. Long before this the end 
was seen to be inevitable, the clearer-sighted Moriscos 
were negotiating for submission and the pitiless policy of 
expulsion had been commenced. As early as February 
24, 1570, Philip ordered Don John to collect, with as 
little scandal as possible, all the peaceable Moriscos of 
Guadix and Baza and other places within his command, 
and deport them inland, allowing them to keep their 
women and children and to carry with them their 
movables. Don John replied from Seron that he could 
not leave there or divide his forces, to which the king 
assented on March 5th, saying that the royal council had 
determined that not a single Morisco should be left in 
the kingdom of Granada and that he placed the matter 
in Deza's hands. Deza lost no time in performing so 
agreeable a duty. He commenced with those of the 
Vega who were shut up in their churches on Palm Sun- 
day (March 19th), from which they were transferred to 
the Hospital Real. They were allowed to sell their 

1 Coleccion de Doc. ined, T. XXYIII. pp. 100, 118. 



EXPULSION OF MOMISCOS. 257 

movables, to facilitate whicli their wheat and cattle were 
taken for the army to be paid for at current prices. No 
resistance was encountered ; they were carried under 
guard to various places in Castile and distributed around. 
In April those of Guadix were shut up in their churches, 
but this threatened to interfere with the submission of 
those of the mountains who were preparing to lay down 
their arms. To reassure them the movement was sus- 
pended and they were told that it was merely to get 
them out of harm^s way and that on the conclusion of 
peace they would be brought back with rewards from the 
king.^ 

This process of deportation in many places degenerated 
into raids of robbery and murder. The Moriscos of 
Ronda and the Sierra Bermeja, to the extreme west of 
the kingdom, had remained peaceable and had not joined 
in the rebellion. In April, under orders from Philip, 
Antonio de Luna was sent to Ronda to remove them to 
Andalusia and Estremadura. He was furnished with 
4000 foot and 100 horse, with which he occupied the 
sierra before his errand was known and sent his troops 
out in companies to shut all the men up in the churches 
and carry them away. As soon as the soldiers appeared, 
however, the men fled to the mountains, leaving their 
families, and the undisciplined troops at once seized the 
women and children and plundered the houses and cattle, 
slaying all who attempted resistance, on seeing which, 
the men came down from the mountains and killed many 
of the scattered soldiers, encumbered with plunder. At 
Genalguacil there was a sharp skirmish in which the 

1 Marmol Carvajal, pp. 323, 336. 
17 



258 THE BEnELLtON OF GRANADA. 

Moriscos recovered their women and children. De Luna 
succeeded in gathering together fifteen hundred of his 
men^ laden with women and children and spoils, which 
they sold at Ronda, as though gained in open war, and 
then dispersed. Luna forwarded to Castile such Moriscos 
as he had been able to gather and then went to Philip, 
who was in Seville, to disculpate himself from the charges 
brought by the Moriscos of violating the royal safeguard. 
They professed readiness to lay down their arms and obey 
the king if their women and children and property were 
returned, which they said could readily be done. Luna^s 
excuses were admitted ; the blame was thrown on the dis- 
orderly troops and the result was an obstinate rebellion 
in the Sierra Bermeja which kept the Dukes of Medina 
Sidonia and Arcos busy and was not subdued until the 
opening months of 1571.^ 

Somewhat similar was the experience at Torrox, near 
Malaga, where Ar6valo de Zuazo was commissioned to 
deport the peaceable Moriscos. He ordered his men to 
shut them up quietly in the church, and he placed guards 
around the town, but many escaped to the mountains 
with their families and cattle and joined the insurgents 
of the Sierra Bermeja. Torrox being thus depopulated, 
he left there Juan de Pajariego, with a small force, to 
gather up the portable property. The latter, understand- 
ing that the refugees had 3000 head of cattle and many 
women and children who could be captured, as the men 
were unarmed, organized a force of 120 adventurers to 
secure the spoils, but the Moriscos caught them in an 

1 Marmol Carvajal, pp. 342, 355, 357, 362.— Mendoza, pp. 116, 
118-20. 



EXPULSION OF MORISCOS. 259 

ambuscade and the survivors were only rescued by rein- 
forcements from Malaga and Torrox. Then the latter 
place was abandoned^ when the refugees descended and 
burnt the church and the houses of the Christians/ 

Thus the process of deportation went on everywhere 
with varying fortune. Formal terms of surrender had 
been agreed upon as early as May 19^ 1570^ under which it 
was understood that those who submitted should be re- 
moved, but in the reduced districts along the Almanzora 
there were disturbances, owing to the irrepressible rapacity 
of the soldiery. At Baza, Don Alonso de Carvajal suc- 
ceeded in enticing them into the ciiurches under the pretext 
of a distribution of wheat and cattle. This had been done 
under final instructions, October 28, 1570, from Philip to 
Don John, ordering the deportation of all, both the loyal 
and the submissive rebels. Those of the city and Vega 
of Granada, the valley of Lecrin and province of Malaga 
were to be taken toX^ordova and thence to be distributed 
through Estremadura and Galicia ; those of Guadix, Baza 
and the river Almanzora were to be distributed from 
Toledo through Old Castile as far as Leon ; those of Al- 
meria and its district were to be carried in galleys as far as 
Seville. None were to go to Murcia or other places near 
Valencia, nor to Andalusia which was already encumbered 
with them. Families were not to be separated ; they 
were to move in bands of 1500 men with their women 
and children, under escort of 200 foot, and 20 horse, with 
a commissioner who made lists of those under his charge, 
provided them with food and distributed them in their 
destinations. Don John applied himself to the execution 

^ Marmol Carvajal, p. 344. 



260 THE REBELLION OF GRANADA, 

of these orders energetically^ for he was most anxious to 
leave Granada and assume command of the great armada 
against the Turk. November 5th he writes from Guadix 
to Ruy Gomez that the number sent away from this dis- 
trict alone has been large and it has all been done with 
a thousand soldiers. The last party was sent off that day 
and was the most unfortunate affair in the world^ for there 
was such a tempest of wind^ rain and snow that the 
mother will lose her daughter on the road^ the wife her 
husband and the widow her infant. It cannot be denied^ 
he adds^ that the depopulation of a kingdom is the most 
pitiful thing that can be imagined.^ 

Although organized resistance had ceased after the 
terms of surrender had been agreed upon in May^ and 
although under it^ to the lasting humiliation of Spanish 
pride^ the Berber auxiliaries had been allowed to depart 
in June^ still desultory fighting was kept up for a consid- 
erable time. Large numbers came down from the moun- 
tains and surrendered, but many still hesitated to trust 
the insecurity of the roads and the faith of the victors, 
as they well might, for, when a considerable body from 
Felix hurried with their families to Almeria to surrender, 
they were followed by a party of soldiers who reached 
the town at the same time and claimed them as slaves. 
Garcia de Villaroel, the commandant, accepted the sur- 
render, but the soldiers complained to Don John and he 
sent a judge to decide the matter who awarded them all 
as slaves. King Abenabo had accepted the terms of 
capitulation, but it happened that a party of two hun- 

^ Marmol Carvajal, pp. 341, 364. — Coleccion de Doc. ined. T. 
XXVIII. p. 156. 



MURDER OF ABENABO. 261 

dred Berbers managed to land and reach the Alpujarras 
where they amused him with stories of large succors 
soon to arrive and he resolved to defend himself to the last. 
To meet this the sierra^ in September^ 1570^ was attacked 
simultaneously from both ends with a war of ruthless 
devastation^ destroying all harvests, killing the men 
and bringing in women and children by the thousand as 
slaves. What few prisoners were taken were executed 
or sent to the galleys. The caves were sought for and 
the inmates captured or smothered to death ; nothing 
was left but desolation ; forts were built and the troops 
were kept constantly on the move so that the survivors, 
reduced to extreme misery, fled from cave to cave.^ 

Still, so long as Abenabo remained at large, the Span- 
iards felt that the war was not over. He lay in hiding 
among caves in the most inaccessible parts of the sierra, 
until, in March, 1571, one of his most trusted followers, 
Gonzalo el Xenis, a^ famous monfi, guilty of many crimes, 
agreed to despatch him. El Xenis had wanted to escape 
to Barbary, but Abenabo had his vessel burnt and for- 
bade him to approach the coast, which angered him. 
Through Francisco Barredo, a silversmith of Granada, 
he made overtures and, by Deza^s order, Alonso del Cas- 
tillo wrote offering to him and to all who would come in 
with him, bringing Abenabo's head, free pardon for per- 
son and property ; they should not be slain or sent to the 
galleys, and as for the Inquisition, they should be let off 
Avith light penalties, and they should be allowed to select 
their own places of residence. Besides this Gonzalo him- 
self should regain his wife and daughter who had been 

1 Marmol Carvajal, pp. 347, 349, 359. 



262 THE REBELLION OF GRANADA. 

enslaved, fifty captives should be given to him without 
ransom, he should be empowered to name six persons 
who might bear arms like Old Christians and should 
have pardon for certain murders and robberies of which 
he stood charged before the rebellion.^ 

Gonzalo's conference with Barredo had not escaped 
observation. Abenabo went at night to his cave and 
taxed him with it. Gonzalo showed him the letter ; they 
quarrelled and Gonzalo and his followers despatched 
him, throwing his body down the rocks that the rest 
might see that they had no king. Nearly all took 
advantage of the letter of pardon and went in with him. 
They were marched in procession through the streets of 
Granada with Abenabo^s body clothed and mounted on a 
horse as though alive. The arquebusiers fired a salute, 
responded to by the guns of the Alhambra, as the proces- 
sion moved to the Audiencia, where it was received by 
the Duke of Arcos, Deza and a crowd of gentlemen. 
Gonzalo kissed the hands of Arcos and Deza and handed 
them the matchlock and scimitar of Abenabo, saying that, 
like a good shepherd, if he could not bring the sheep to 
his master he at least brought the pelt. The corpse was 
drawn and quartered and the head, in an iron cage over 
the arch of the Puerta del Rastro, for years looked out 
on the Alpu] arras. The lately disturbed districts were 
industriously traversed by small companies of soldiers 
who were paid twenty ducats a head for all the strag- 

^ Cartulario de Alonso del Castillo, pp. 35-9, 154 (Memorial His- 
t6rico Espanol, T. III.). 

Castillo wrote a similar letter to another Morisco leader named 
Andres el Rindati, but he made use of it to escape to Barbary with a 
number of companions. — Ibid. 



END OF THE WAR. 263 

glers they could bring to Deza ; he examined them and 
sent them to the galleys, except the more prominent 
among them who were torn with hot pincers and hanged.^ 
Thus ended a war^ brought on by unreasoning fanati- 
cism^ which through blundering incapacity was reckoned 
to have cost sixty thousand Spanish lives and three million 
ducats and left a flourishing kingdom depopulated. That 
Leonardo Donate^ the Venetian envoy, pronounces the 
depopulation a measure of great wisdom only emphasizes 
the wrongheadedness which rendered it the wisest alter- 
native. He points out that if the Turk^ in place of turn- 
ing his arms against Venice^ had sent effective succor to 
the rebels he would have kindled a flame almost impos- 
sible to extinguish, and had the revolt extended to 
Murcia, Valencia, Catalonia and Aragon, Spanish states- 
men expected the Huguenots of France to pour over the 
Pyrenees.^ It is characteristic that Deza, who was the 
malignant spirit o# the whole, was left triumphant in 
Granada as captain-general, that through Philip^ s favor 
he rose to the cardinalate and long flourished in Pome 
as a wealthy prince of the Church.^ 

No time was lost in seeking to repopulate the desert 

^ Marmol Carvajal, p. 363. — Mendoza, p. 121. 

2 Eelazioni Yenete, Serie I. Tom. VI. p. 408. — Ximenez, Vida de 
Eibera, p. 375. 

^ At Philip's request he was created Cardinal priest of S. Prisca, in 
1578, by Gregory XIII. He went to Rome in 1580 where in time he 
became Cardinal bishop of Albano and died, in 1600, full of years and 
honors. He built a splendid palace which after his death passed into 
the hands of Cardinal Borghese, subsequently Paul V. — Ciaconii Hist. 
Pontiff. Roman, et Cardinalium, IV. 60 (Ed. 1676). Padre Bleda 
(Cronica, pp. 658, 963) mentions his having an audience with Deza on 
his visit to Rome in 1591. 



264 THE REBELLION OF OB AN AD A, 

which had been created. February 24, 1571, Mondejar 
was directed to return to Granada to superintend the 
process under an edict which gave to new settlers the 
houses and properties of the exiles, but he did not remain 
long. A subsequent edict of September 27, 1571, offered 
to give to immigrants vacated houses subject to a nominal 
ground-rent of a real per annum ; the lands, in addition 
to the old tithes, were to pay another to the king in kind, 
while mulberry and olive plantations were to pay him a 
fifth of the produce for ten years from January, 1572, and 
a third thereafter. All this shows that the landed property 
of the exiles was held to be confiscated to the crown, 
in the realengos or districts subject to the royal juris- 
diction, and that in inviting settlers the interests of the 
revenue were not disregarded. The process of recuper- 
ation was very slow. A series of elaborate regulations, 
issued August 31, 1574, seems to assume that little prog- 
ress had as yet been made. Commissioners of population 
were provided for the several districts and the object 
apparently was to get persons with some capital to take 
up larger tracts and divide them by lot in equal holdings 
between actual settlers. The provisions respecting oil 
and grain mills, dilapidated houses, rights to water from 
irrigating canals, common pasturage for villages, public 
ovens, the rights of churches and Old Christians, and the 
settlement of disputes show how intricate and difficult 
was the task of rebuilding a civilization so ruthlessly 
destroyed. In the lands of the feudal nobles the prop- 
erty was held to revert to the lords who were ordered to 
distribute it in equal lots to settlers and not to exact 
greater imposts than had been paid by the Moriscos. It 
is probable that a goodly portion of the confiscated lands 



FATE OF THE EXILES. 265 

was frittered away in satisfying claims for damages suf- 
fered during the war, for this was the mode adopted to 
meet them as least burdensome to the royal treasury/ 
As for the young children who had been captured during 
the war, a provision issued in 1572 declared that they 
should not be enslaved but be distributed among Old 
Christians to be well brought up and to serve for their 
food and clothing up to the age of 20.^ Thus slowly and 
painfully the effort was made to repair the havoc and 
desolation which could so easily have been avoided. 

The fate of the exiles was hard. Leonardo Donato, 
tells us, as an eyewitness, that many perished through 
miseries and afHictions, which can readily be believed.^ 
They were scattered throughout Spain to the borders of 
Portugal, their distribution being in charge of a tempo- 
rary Consejo de Pohlaciones, That they were not regarded 
as welcome guests js visible in the complaints of Cordova, 
in 1572, as to their harboring their enslaved countrymen, 
committing crimes and purchasing, for eight or ten ducats, 
licences to bear arms and move around in contravention of 
the laws.^ After due deliberation, an elaborate edict of 
October 6, 1572, in twenty-three sections, prescribed the 
regulations under which they were permitted to exist. 



^ Historia de la Casa de Mondejar (Morel-Fatio, p. 95). — Janer, pp. 
246, 258-66.— Distribuci on de los Memoriales (Morel-Fatio, p. 213). 
The Venetian envoy Donato, in his relation of 1573, says that Philip 
was deriving a revenue of 125,000 crowns from the lands of the Moriscos 
of Granada which had passed into his hands. — Eelazioni Venete, Serie 
I. Tom. VI. p. 378. 

^ Nueva Eecop. Lib. VIII. Tit. ii. ley 22 | 14. 

^ Relazioni Venete, Serie I. Tom. VI. p. 407. 

♦ Janer, pp. 254-6. 



266 THE REBELLION OF OEANADA. 

They were to be kept under perpetual surveillance. Every 
individual was to be registered in his place of domicile^ and 
lists of them were to be made out in duplicate to be pre- 
served by the proper officials^ in which lists all births and 
deaths were to be entered as they occurred. In each chief 
town a superintendent of Moriscos was appointed who was 
required to visit them every fortnight ; in each parish a 
jurado had the same functions who^ with the priest^ was 
to visit them every week^ in addition to which the justicia 
of the district was to visit them monthly^ all this^ it is 
said^ not only to keep watch over them but to make sure 
that they were supported^ special care being exercised to 
help the poor and to cure the sick^ while the magistrates 
were ordered to see that they had work^ each in his own 
line of industry. No one was permitted to change his 
residence without a special royal licence^ application for 
which must specify all the reasons therefor, nor was any 
one even to pass a night away from his domicile without 
a licence from the justicia of the place containing a de- 
scription of his person^ his destination and the duration 
of his absence ; such licences were not to be charged for 
and were to be freely given to all not suspected of wish- 
ing to return to Granada or to go beyond seas, but if 
necessary, security might be demanded. Access to 
Granada was sternly prohibited ; any Morisco found 
within ten leagues of the Granada border was to suffer 
death, if a male over the age of 16 ; between that and 
ten and a half, and all females over nine and a half 
were to be enslaved, while younger children were to be 
given to Old Christians to be brought up until they 
reached the age of twenty. If found within ten leagues 
of Valencia, Aragon or Navarre the penalties were the 



RESTRICTIONS ON THE EXILES. 267 

same, except that death was commuted to service for life in 
the galleys. If found elsewhere away from their domiciles 
men were punished with a hundred lashes and four years 
of galleys, women with four years of servitude. As soon 
as any one was absent from his home for a day, his family, 
or the inmates of his house, were required under penalties 
to report him, when he was to be tracked by the Santa 
Hermandad ; any one harboring him was to be punished, 
any one finding such a fugitive was to take him to the 
nearest magistrate and receive a reward of eight ducats. 
Where there were numbers of them they were not to live 
in a Moreria apart but in houses scattered among Old 
Christians ; the children, as far as possible, were to be 
brought up in Christian families, and the magistrates 
were to see that they were taught to read and write and 
the elements of Christian faith. Arms were rigorously 
prohibited, save a pointl-ess knife, under penalty, for a 
first offence, of confiscation, for a second, of six years of 
galleys, for a third, of galleys for life. The pragmatica 
of 1566 was declared to be fully in force, and the provi- 
sions respecting the use of Arabic were especially severe ; 
any one speaking or writing it, even in his own house, 
incurred for a first offence thirty days^ prison in chains, 
for a second, double, for a third, men a hundred lashes 
and four years of galleys, women and youths under 
seventeen, four years of servitude.^ 

If anything could obviate the dangers always appre- 
hended from the Moriscos, such a system would effect it, 
but it was not calculated to merge them with the popu- 
lation or diminish their abhorrence of Christianity. The 

1 Nueva Recop. Lib. VIII. Tit. ii. ley 22. 



268 THE REBELLION OF GRANADA, 

impossible rigor of the clauses respecting Arabic^ applied 
to those ignorant of any other tongue, shocked even the 
town-council of Cordova, which, as we have seen, was not 
favorably disposed to the exiles. November 28th it 
appointed a committee to represent to the alcalde mayor 
that God alone was able to render them capable of speak- 
ing a language which they did not know, especially as 
they were harassed by the alguaziles constantly arrest- 
ing and punishing them, wherefore they asked him to 
suspend action till the king could be consulted and 
schools be organized, at the expense of the Moriscos, to 
instruct them, to all of which the alcalde replied that he 
had no choice but to obey the royal pragmatica and in- 
flict the punishment on all brought before him/ 

Spanish legislation was apt to defeat itself by its exu- 
berance and violence and its execution to be thwarted by 
the neglect or cupidity of the officials. In 1576 and 
1583 it was felt necessary to repeat the prohibition of 
absence from domicile without a licence, and, in 1581, to 
reiterate the provisions as to keeping lists of Moriscos. 
Even the ferocious penalties for returning to Granada 
were powerless to prevent them from attempting it suc- 
cessfully, especially as no judge or alcalde was found 
willing to sentence them to death. The law thus was a 
dead letter and it was resolved to commute the punish- 
ment to the galleys. Philip proposed, in 1582, to have 
them all seized simultaneously ; the Council of Pobla- 
ciones represented that there were not officials enough to 
accomplish this, to which the king replied that he wanted 
men for his galleys and that it must be done without 

^ Janer, p. 256, 



RETURN TO GRANADA FORBIDDEN. 269 

delay ; he gave minute instructions how it was to be 
accomplished by surprise in a single day ; all the men 
between 17 and 55^ fit for the oar^ were to be sent to the 
galleyS; the rest and the women and children to be taken 
to the places allotted to them ; there was to be no hear- 
ing allowed and no trials.^ He was more lenient^ in 1585^ 
on learning that three thousand of the exiles had suc- 
ceeded in getting into Valencia^ for he ordered the 
Viceroy Aytona to hang six of them as a warning and 
then issue a proclamation that the rest would be treated 
in the same way if within two months they did not return 
to their allotted places of residence.^ Many of those de- 
ported claimed that they were not subject to the condi- 
tions of the law of 1572^ asserting themselves to be Old 
Christians because their ancestors had been baptized 
prior to the general coerced conversion ; they sometimes 
made good these claims before the courts^ but; in 1585^ 
Philip ordered air these matters referred to the Consejo 
de Poblaciones and directed that^ notwithstanding favor- 
able sentence obtained in the courts^ they should be sub- 
ject to the prescriptions of the law as to residence and 
deprivation of arms. To the same council were referred 
the petitions of those who asked for grants of Morisco 
slaves or that wandering Moriscos might be assigned to 
them as slaves, from which it would appear that many 
of them were reduced to servitude.^ The Inquisition 

^ Janer, pp. 246, 252, 273.— Danvila, pp. 200, 202, 204.— Mr. Martin 
A. S. Hume (Spain, its Greatness and Decay, p. 154) computes at thir- 
teen thousand the Moriscos who were sent to the galleys or the mines 
or were hanged as the result of the rebellion. 

2 Danvila, pp. 205, 206. 

^ Nueva Kecop. Lib. VIII. Tit. ii. ley 23. — Distribucion de los 
Memoriales (Morel-Fatio, pp. 213, 214). 



270 THE REBELLION OF GRANADA, 

also found in the exiles^ both free and enslaved^ a field 
for active operations. A considerable portion of the 
Morisco trials for years^ in the tribunals of Castile^ were 
of those brought from Granada^ and it was decided that 
they were liable to prosecution for Moorish rites which 
they had performed during the rebellion. A somewhat un- 
usual case was that of Diego de Ortega^ a youth of twenty^ 
who, in 1581^ denounced himself to the Inquisition of 
Toledo. He said that^ as a boy in the sierra^ he had prac- 
tised Moorish ceremonies and that for some years after 
coming to Toledo he had entertained doubts as to the truth 
of Christianity. There was no other testimony, and he was 
sentenced merely to reconciliation privately in the audience 
chamber, to which the Suprema mercifully added " with- 
out confiscation.'^^ Yet in spite of these limitations and 
disadvantages the indomitable industry and thrift of the 
strangers, thus violently scattered among a hostile popu- 
lation, soon created for them a prosperous career which 
excited the jealousy of their neighbors. Only ten years 
after the exile an official report says that their numbers 
are increasing because none go to war or into religion 
and they are so industrious that, after coming to Castile 
ten years ago without owning a handsbreadth of land^ 
they are all well-off and many are rich, so that if it con- 
tinues in the same proportion in twenty years the natives 
will be their servants.^ It was evident that trampling 
on them was of no avail and Spain could never be satis- 
fied short of extermination or expulsion. 

1 MSS. of Library of University of Halle, Yc. 20, Tom. I.— Archivo 
de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 939, fol. 108. 

2 Janer, p. 272. 



CHAPTEE IX. 

DANGERS FROM ABROAD. 

It is not to be supposed that the Moriscos^ thus sub- 
jected to hopeless oppression^ failed to seek relief from 
their powerful co-religionists in foreign lands. For 
more than five centuries the cross and the crescent had 
waged internecine war throughout the length and breadth 
of the Mediterranean basin and Turk and Algerine might 
be expected to sympathize with the miseries of their 
brethren and be eager to use them as a means of dis- 
abling the power which^ in the sixteenth century^ was 
foremost among the enemies of Islam. It was a real 
peril^ ever present to the minds of Spanish statesmen^ 
and the means adopted to avert it^ by increasing the 
disabilities piled upon the Moriscos, only augmented it 
by stimulating disaffection^ rendering more earnest the 
appeals for assistance and strengthening the temptation 
of the enemy to strike at so vital and unguarded a spot. 
The Mudejares had been loyal subjects, but fanaticism, 
by insisting on their Christianization, had converted them 
into the most dangerous of internal enemies. Even as 
early as 1512 Peter Martyr, in describing the disturbed 
condition of Granada, says that if some daring pirate 
leader would march into the interior the population 
would join him and, as the king is occupied with the 
conquest of Navarre, all would go to ruin.^ While the 

1 Pet. Mart. Angler. Epist. 499. 



272 DANGERS FROM ABROAD, 

Granada rebellion was in progress^ the Venetian envoy, 
Sigismondo Cavalli, in 1570, pointed out that assistance 
from Barbary would throw the whole kingdom in the 
greatest peril for there were about 600,000 Moriscos in 
Spain ready to assist the invader, and, in 1575, Lorenzo 
Priuli described them, whom he estimates at 400,000, as 
the source of perpetual danger.^ If those of Granada 
alone, assisted by a few hundred adventurers, had only 
been subdued after exertions which taxed the whole 
energies of the monarchy, what might be expected if a 
powerful fleet and army should encourage a rising of the 
united Morisco population ? As their numbers were con- 
stantly increasing, while those of the Christians dimin- 
ished, they cherished the hope, if Fray Bleda is to be 
believed, of eventually reconquering the whole land, 
with the aid of the Moors and the Turks.^ 

Meanwhile there was an intermittent warfare on foot, 
which, though not threatening to the national integrity, 
was infinitely galling and vexatious. It is remarkable 
that Spain, while sending her fleets to the Indies and 
the North Sea and to the Italian waters, could not pro- 
tect her own coasts from the ravages of insignificant cor- 
sairs, so that it became a proverb that the Spanish shore 
was the Indies of these sea-rovers. The blame was 
thrown on the Moriscos, who undoubtedly afforded all 
the aid they could, maintaining intelligences with the 
Moors, sending information and availing themselves of 
the raids to escape in large numbers to Barbary, to the 
great discomfiture of their lords. But the primary fault 
lay in the foreign policy of Charles Y. and Philip II., 

1 Kelazioni Venete, Serie I. T. VI. pp. 165, 241. 

2 Bledse Defensio Fidei, pp. 272, 276, 285. 



RAVAGES OF COBSAIBS, 273 

who directed their attention to distant enterprises and 
consumed the power of Spain in quarrels which were of 
no national importance. So completely were the Spanish 
coasts left unguarded that^ in 1542^ the Moors entered 
Gibraltar^ leading the cortes of Valladolid to petition 
Charles to provide for the national defence^ and in 1604 
the cortes of Valencia begged for additional fortifications 
and the protection of four galleys of the Naples squadron^ 
for which they offered to pay.^ 

Complaints of the ravages of corsairs commence with 
the enforced Christianization of Granada. While, in 1499 
and 1500, the court was there, occupied with superintend- 
ing the baptism and with suppressing the consequent 
revolt, we are told that when the people saw that they 
were made Christians by force they invited the Moors 
from Africa, who penetrated to many places and carried 
away the Christians, especially the clerics.^ These com- 
plaints continue until the final expulsion, when Fray 
Bleda, in 1618, enumerating the blessings conferred by it, 
includes freedom from the attacks of the Moors whom the 
Moriscos sheltered and aided.^ Spanish ballad and story 
bear ample witness to the frequency of these incidents, 
and the reality scarcely needed the romantic coloring of 
fiction, as one or two instances will show. In 1529 cer- 
tain Moriscos of Valencia made arrangements with Bar- 
barossa to transfer them to Barbary, in execution of which 
agreement he sent his lieutenant, Hardin Cachadiablo, 
with a squadron. October 17th, at the river Altea, he 
landed by night six hundred men and sent them off in 

^ Colmeiro, Cortes de Leon y Castilla, II. 198. — Danvila, p. 263. 
^ Bernaldez, Historia de los Eeyes Catolicos, II. 155, 156. 
3 Bleda, Cronica, p. 1033. 

18 



274 DANGERS FR OM ABR OAD. 

bands of a hundred. They penetrated to the towns of 
Parchent and Murla^ gathered together seven hundred 
Moriscos and returned in safety to their vessels. At 
Parchent they besieged the lord of the place^ Pedro Per- 
andreo, in his house ; for nine hours he resisted bravely 
with seven men^ but his vassals showed the Moors how 
to gain the roof and he was captured. The Count of 
Oliva^ who had lost two hundred Moriscos^ pursued the 
Moors with sixty horse/but vainly^ and offered Pedro de 
Portundo^ commander of the Spanish galleys^ ten thou- 
sand crowns to recover them. Cachadiablo meanwhile 
hoisted a flag of truce to treat for the ransom of Perandreo, 
which was fixed at eleven thousand ducats^ but, while 
waiting for the money to come from Valencia^ he heard 
that Portundo was seeking him^ and he set sail to avoid 
him. Foul weather caused him to put into Despaldar^ 
where Portundo came up with him. He landed the 
Moriscos on the island of Formentera and engaged the 
Spanish fleet^ October 25th^ sinking all their galleys but 
two, killing Portundo and capturing his son. Reimbark- 
ing the Moriscos^ he sailed for Algiers, carrying Perandreo 
with him, and handing him over to Barbarossa. Four times 
his ransom was sent, but each time the agent ransomed 
others and left him in captivity. In 1535 his wife sent 
her son, Pedro de Roda, with Charles Y. to Tunis in hopes 
that he might capture a Moor of importance with whom 
to effect an exchange. Failing in this, Pedro went to 
Flanders with letters of credit, and thence to Venice, 
intending to go to Constantinople, whither Barbarossa had 
taken his father in 1533, but on reaching Ragusa he 
learned that Barbarossa was coming with a large fleet to 
resist Charleses expedition to Algiers in 1541. Then he 



RAVAGES OF COESAIBS. 275 

procured letters from Renee^ Duchess of Ferrara, to the 
Turkish ambassador at Paris with whom he conckided a 
bargaiu for 5000 ducats. Barbarossa came to Toulon and 
Pedro hastened to meet him^ but at Genoa he had letters 
from Constantinople announcing that his father was dead 
and from Valencia that his mother was also no more.^ 
Somewhat less successful than Cachadiablo was the corsair 
Amuratarraez^ in 1602^ who came with nine well armed 
galiots and landed six hundred men at Lorca^ on the 
coast of Cartagena. The people took refuge in a tower^ 
but he burnt it and departed with sixty captives and con- 
siderable booty. Thence he went to ^lalaga to catch the 
bishop^ Tomas cle Borja^ at his country-seat^ but the latter 
had warning and escaped. In the summer of 1609 the 
whole southern coast of Spain was kept in a state of alarm 
by the exploits of an Englishman^ Simon Dancer^ who 
carried motley crews of Moors and Christians^ had a safe 
conduct from France and a safe harbor of refuge in Al- 
giers. He captured vessels without much regard to nation- 
ality and ravaged the shores of Andalusia. Among other 
prizes were a ship of the Mexican fleet with 300,000 
ducats and a couple of vessels with 150 Biscayans, whom 
he took to Tetuan and sold as slaves.^ 

The Moriscos were held responsible for this, chiefly in 
consequence of their desire to escape to Barbary, for 
which their correspondence with the corsairs afforded 
them the best opportunity. This was frequently effected 

^ Sandoval, Lib. xviii. |§ x. xi. — Danvila, p. 109. 

2 Cabrera, Eelaciones, pp. 153, 368, 373, 375, 382. Amiiratarraez 
is eyidently Captain Amurath — arraez being the Moorish term for ship- 
master. 



276 DANGERS FROM ABROAD, 

in large numbers. In 1559 Dragut carried off 2500 ; in 
1570 all those of Palmera were taken ; in the summer of 
1584 the Algerine fleet visited the Valencian coast and 
carried away twenty-three hundred souls^ and the next 
year another fleet took off the whole population of Cal- 
losa. It was said that the king of Algiers had received 
from the Grand Turk some deserted lands which he pro- 
posed to populate in this manner.^ So complete was the 
conviction that the trouble lay with the Moriscos that all 
devices were tried except the natural one of efficiently 
guarding the shores. In 1505^ Peter Martyr describes 
the coast as being ravaged by Moorish corsairs^ to pre- 
vent which^ in 1507, Ferdinand undertook to depopulate 
it from Gibraltar to Almeria, for two leagues back, and to 
replace the Moriscos with Old Christians, but the experi- 
ment was a failure.^ In 1532, the cortes of Segovia at- 
tributed the evil to the Moors brought from Africa and 
set free, who maintained secret intelligence with their 
friends at home, and they petitioned Charles that within 
a year after manumission they should remove to "a dis- 
tance of twenty leagues from the coast, under pain of 
death, but Charles modified the distance to ten leagues 
and the penalty to a hundred lashes for a first offence 
and the galleys for a second.^ In Valencia these troubles 

1 Danvila, pp. 161, 182, 205, 207. Cervantes (Persiles y Sigis- 
munda, Lib. iii. cap. xi. ) gives a picturesque description of such an 
embarkation. The castellated church, in which the few Christians took 
refuge and defended themselves, conveys a vivid impression of the in- 
security in which lived the inhabitants of the coast. 

^ Pet. Mart. Angler. Epist. 499. — Mariana, Hist, de Espana, Tom. 
IX. p. 217 (Ed. 1796). 

^ Colmeiro, Cortes, II. 165. 



RESTRICTIONS IN THE COAST LANDS 277 

were ascribed to the Moriscos. A viceregal proclama- 
tion of January 11^ 1530^ states that they held reL4tions 
with the corsairs and were always endeavoring to go to 
Africa^ for which reason they were forbidden to change 
their lords under pain of confiscation^ and any one receiv- 
ing them was fined five hundred florins^ while death and 
confiscation were threatened for any Morisco found trav- 
elling without a permit in the region between the coast 
and the highway from Alicante to Barcelona or for any 
one going to a group of towns — Polop, Callosa^ etc. — 
not on the sea-coast^ or for any of those converted within 
eight years who shall give aid or counsel to the corsairs. 
In the execution of these laws it was found that the kin- 
dred of culprits impoverished themselves to redeem them^ 
to prevent which Charles^ in 1536^ ordered that there 
should be no redemption^ but that the penalties of death 
or the galleys should be irremissible. In 1541, there was 
further legislation of the same kind, and the forbidden 
district was extended to the region between Orihuela and 
the coast, all of which was virtually repeated in 1545, 
and in the same year a royal order forced the Inquisition 
of Valencia to contribute two thousand ducats for the 
guard of the coasts. In 1567, a law of December 10th 
assumes that the damage inflicted by corsairs is attributa- 
ble to the aid rendered by Moriscos and is fostered by the 
negligence of the authorities in punishing the guilty; it 
threatens death and confiscation for all connivance with the 
enemies of the faith, while all damage inflicted on Chris- 
tians by corsairs^ including the ransom of captives carried 
off, is to be levied and assessed on the Moriscos. All this 
was inefficacious, and in 1585 another proclamation pro- 



278 DANGERS FROM ABROAD, 

hibited their approaching the shore/ If legislation could 
cure the trouble there was plenty of it^ but it was directed 
at the wrong end. A more feasible plan was that pro- 
posed by the cortes of Valencia in 1604 — that^ if the rigor 
of the Inquisition should be relaxed and the evidence of 
Moriscos should not be received against each other^ they 
agreed to redeem all Christian slaves captured by the 
Moriscos on the Valencian coast. This^ it was argued^ 
would stop the ravages of the corsairs^ who would be de- 
prived of the aid and information given by the Moriscos^ 
and the latter would be interested in repressing them.^ 
Of course the petition was not granted. 

While all this was humiliating and exasperating and 
served to keep up a healthy detestation of the Moriscos^ 
it affected but a narrow strip of territory. Far more 
menacing to the whole monarchy was the generally ac- 
cepted fact that the oppressed population was always 
yearning for an invader and plotting to invite an inva- 
sion. During the latter half of the sixteenth century^ 
and especially after the terrible warning of the rebellion 
of Granada^ this was an anxiety ever present to the minds 
of Spanish statesmen. They felt themselves walking on 
the thin crust of a crater^ watching for evidence of an 
eruption ; they were always in search of a fresh conspir- 
acy^ and, thanks to the Inquisition/ they obtained it at 
not distant intervals. That the Moriscos were a recog- 
nized source of weakness to the monarchy is seen in a 
careful report on the condition of Spain made, in 1594, by 

^ Danvila, pp. 109-12, 118, 129, 132, 210.— Nueva Recop. Lib. YJIL 
Tit. ii. ley 20. — Archive de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 940, fol. €9, 184. 
2 Fonseca, pp. 341, 343. 



PLOTS FOR REBELLION. 279 

the Nuucio Caetano to Clement VIII. He describes the 
land as internally peaceful and loyal except that the 
Moriscos are much to be feared. They were converted by 
force and they " Judaize ; ^^ they number about 300^000 
and multiply rapidly^ and as they are industrious and 
thrifty they are thought to be rich^ so that altogether 
they are a subject of much solicitude.^ 

When Philip II. returned to Spain^ in 1559^ he called 
for a report on the condition of the Moriscos^ to serve as 
a guide for his policy toward them^ and among other in- 
formation gathered was that of a plot with the Turk for 
an invasion when they would rise.^ In 1567, the trial of 
Hieronimo Roldan by the Inquisition of Valencia devel- 
oped testimony of recent envoys from the king of Algiers 
with a letter urging the Moriscos to rebel and of efforts 
to organize and arm them.^ Then came the revolt of 
Granada, which, though it showed that the Moslem powers 
were not so readj^ to invade Spain as was supposed, at 
the same time revealed its weakness to resist an inva- 
sion supported by a rebellion. In 1583, there was a 
scare over an asserted combination of Henry of Navarre 
with the Turk for an invasion in which the Moriscos had 
agreed to rise, which led the Suprema, January 13, 1584, 
to order the tribunal of Aragon to prepare a detailed re- 
port of all the evidence, rumors and suspicions of risings, 
which was duly furnished at considerable length.^ This 

^ Hinojosa, Despachos de la Diplomacia Pontificia, p. 381 (Madrid, 
1896). 

2 Danvila, p. 158. 

^ Archivo Hist. Nacional, Inq^^ de Valencia, Legajo 30. 

* Archivo Hist. Nacional, Inq^^ de Valencia, Cartas del Consejo, 
Legajo 5, fol. 192. 



280 DANGERS FROM ABROAD. 

affords so clear an impression of the incessant anxieties 
and vigilance of the period that a condensed abstract will 
best enable us to appreciate them. 

The report begins by stating that^ since 1526^ when the 
Moors of Valencia and Aragon were baptized^ the Inqui- 
sition has kept a special watch over them^ and from the 
accumulated evidence it is clear that they have always 
lived openly as Moors and that the efforts to Christianize 
them have been wasted^ for they are now more obstinate 
than ever. There was nothiug^ however^ to foreshadow a 
general rising until 1565^ when the tribunal of Aragon 
captured Juan Acevedo^ and in Madrid were arrested 
Francisco Hernandez and Diego Torilla^ Moriscos of 
Valladolid and Arevalo, from whose confessions it ap- 
peared that those of Aragon and Valencia were arranging 
with the Turk for a rebellion. Then, in 1568, came the 
troubles of Granada, when those of Aragon were in great 
agitation and laid in stores of arms and munitions and 
provisions, believing that the Turk would help them. 
From Grisel near Tarazona it was reported that when 
the disarmament took place they only gave up their cross- 
bows and swords and concealed their firelocks. Two 
loads of firelocks were sent from Daroca to Axilla Felice, 
where four powder mills were hard at work ; at Torrellas 
many guns were imported from Biscay, and the gunmakers 
reported an incessant demand from Moriscos. On the 
Valencia border, in 1569, a familiar seized two wagon 
loads of lead and tin in charge of Morisco muleteers. 
At Celda one came with his mule loaded with two skins, 
apparently of oil ; the people, who were in want of oil, 
seized one, and the muleteer suddenly disappeared, when 
the skins were found to be filled with povv^der. There is 



PROJECTS OF REBELLION. 281 

an immense mass of testimony going to show that there 
was a plan for concerted action at Easter^ but the Gra- 
nadans rose prematurely at Christmas^ and the rest waited 
to see the result and were disconcerted by the progress 
of the royal arms. 

The vicissitudes and final suppression of the rebellion 
of Granada seemed to promise exemption for awhile^ but^ 
in 1573j there was information that the rulers of Tlemecen 
and Algiers were planning an attack on Mazalquivir, in 
which they were to be aided by a rising of the Moriscos^ 
to avert which those of Valencia were disarmed. It was 
found that this was complicated with an invasion from 
beyond the Pyrenees^ for in January^ 1575, a French 
Huguenot named Franfois Nalias, on trial for heresy in 
Saragossa, confessed under torture that two years before 
he had conducted negotiations between the Moriscos of 
Aragon and Baron de Ros, son of M. de Ros, viceroy of 
Beam ; he implicated Lope Darcos, a Morisco, who like- 
wise confessed under torture. The leading Moriscos 
agreed to rise if Ros would invade Aragon with his 
Huguenots, and they would give him all the money they 
could raise ; apparently he wanted an advance of ten or 
twelve thousand crowns. Envoys were also sent to the 
King of Algiers and the Grand Turk, who favored the 
plan and urged its speedy execution, but the coming of 
Don John of Austria to Valencia and disarming the 
Moriscos frustrated the plan for a time. It was not aban- 
doned however. A certain Jusuf Duarte was sent to Con- 
stantinople and returned in December, 1576, with a letter 
from the sultan which he exhibited to all the aljamas. 
There were to be three fleets, one disembarking between 
Barcelona and Perpignan, one at Denia and one between 



282 DANGERS FROM ABROAD, 

Murcia and Valencia ; the Moriscos were advised to keep 
quiet until the arrival of the fleets^ which was necessarily 
uncertain^ and not to be impatient like those of Granada. 
In February^ 1577^ a spy named Luis Moreno was sent 
out to gather information^ and reported that everything 
was organized and ready in Valencia and Aragon and 
that they were only awaiting the arrival of the fleets 
which had assembled at Farinana and Goletta. He was 
not the only traitor^ for the Inquisition had several in its 
pay who were of the inner councils of the Moriscos. 
Towards the end of April it obtained a copy of a letter 
written April 16th^ by Juan de Benamir of Valencia, ad- 
vising the Moriscos of Aragon that the King of Algiers 
had sent word that the fleet Avas delayed, but that it 
would come and they must keep ready, and then in May 
information was had that it was not expected until August. 
Then there was a copy of a letter from the King of Al- 
giers giving details of the plans ; the attack of the fleet 
is to be simultaneous with an invasion from France ; 
when the French come the Moriscos are to take to the 
mountains. How much of all this was true, and how 
much was manufactured by the detectives to earn their 
pay, it would be impossible now to decide, but the con- 
current confessions of a number of those arrested and 
punished from 1576 to 1579, during which the Inquisi- 
tion was busily investigating and prosecuting, would seem 
to prove that there was substantial foundation for the 
plot and that hopes were held out to the plotters both 
from France and Barbary, and it may well be that the 
desire to give the Huguenots occupation at home was one 
of the motives stimulating Philip to the organization of 
the League and to the assistance of the French Catholics. 



PLOTS, REAL AND FICTITIOUS. 283 

When a political spy has not a real conspiracy to un- 
ravel it is his business to make one. In December^ 1582^ 
the tribunal of Valencia reported to that of Saragossa 
certain intercepted correspondence with Algiers^ showing 
that the Moriscos of Valencia were planning a revolt for 
Easter^ which led to several arrests. This did not come 
off^ but in May the informer Luis Moreno brought in an 
alarming report that Constantinople and Algiers were 
still making the old promises^ the execution of which was 
said to depend on the result of an embassy sent by the 
sultan to the King of France asking him to invade by 
land while the Turks attacked by sea. On this another 
spy named Gil Perez was sent to Trance and returned 
with information^ on the strength of which some eight or 
ten Moriscos were arrested and their papers seized^ but 
though they were duly tortured nothing could be learned 
from them. The inquisitors knew Perez to be a rogue 
of the first waterjor^ in 1581^ on his denunciation they 
had arrested a number of Moinscos of Huesca^ who w^hen 
tried confessed to apostasy but to nothing of what he 
accused them^ and one of them had disabled his evidence 
by proving him to be a thief^ a ruffian and a forger.^ 
Finally Perez himself was placed on trial, and while he 
continued to assert the truth of his revelations he ad- 
mitted that he was under pay by the Moriscos to keep 
them iaformed of the proceedings of the Inquisition. It 
was proved, moreover, that he had suborned witnesses 
and forged letters ; the inculpated Moriscos were dis- 

^ A number of executions in connection with this pretended plot 
took place in Saragossa in 1581, which the Moors of Algiers revenged 
by torturing to death a Carmelite who was in their hands. — Guada- 
lajara y Xavierr, in Historia Pontifical, V. 128 (Madrid, 1630). 



284 DANGERS FROM ABROAD. 

charged and he aud his witnesses were punished. The 
pretended plot was clearly a fraud^ but it served to keep 
up the strain of anxiety and shows how perpetual were 
the apprehensions excited by the unnatural position of 
the Moriscos. A letter of the Suprema, June 22^ 1585^ 
to the inquisitors of Valencia^ reflects this in reminding 
them of one from the king^ of February V2, 1582^ as to 
the diligence expected of them in discovering Morisco 
plots^ and urging them afresh to penetrate into these evil 
designs and to keep the tribunal of Saragossa advised of 
whatever they find/ 

This anxious watchfulness and these instructions to be 
vigilant were incessant. A letter of the Suprema, Sep- 
tember 3^ 1589^ to the Inquisition of Valencia relates that 
the king has recently learned the wicked intentions of 
the Moriscos and some of the means proposed to attain 
their ends. Three loads of powder have been discovered 
which they were carrying as merchandise from Baeza to 
Avila. The inquisitors are^ therefore^ ordered with the 
utmost caution and secrecy to discover the plots on foot^ 
and with whom the Moricos are communicating^ whether 
they are dealing in sulphur and saltpetre and making 
powder and whether they have arms and warlike imple- 
ments^ concealed or openly. All that can be learned is 
to be transmitted under seal with their opinions and 
advice.^ 

^ The report of the Inquisition of Saragossa is in Archivo de Simancas, 
Inqn de Valencia, Legajo 205, fol. 4. The correspondence of the Su- 
premais in Archivo Hist. Nacional, Inqi^ de Valencia, Cartas del Consejo, 
Legajo 5, No. 1, fol. 5, 32, 33, 37, 50, 72, 134, 192. See also Janer, 
pp. 269-71, and Guadalajara j Xavierr in the Historia Pontifical^ Tom. 
V. p. 127. 

^ Archivo Hist. Nacional, loc. cit. fol. 217. 



RELATIONS WITH TURKS AND MOORS. 285 

With the cessation of the religions Avars in France and 
the consolidation of the power of the monarchy in the 
able hands of Henry IV. ^ who had ample cause to seek 
revenge on Spain^ the danger on that side grew visibly 
more imminent. In May^ 1600^ the Count of Benavente^ 
then viceroy of Valencia^ was ordered to report whether 
the Moriscos of that kingdom had any intelligence with 
France. He replied in the negative^ but that they had 
relations with the Turk^ now closer than usual^ in conse- 
quence of the pressure brought upon them by the recently 
published edict of grace. Those of Aragon would be 
more likely to plot with France ; there were vast numbers 
of Frenchmen there^ and even in Valencia there were 
fourteen or fifteen thousand — a matter worthy of serious 
consideration. The Council of State^ in a consulta of 
August 10th to Philip III. on this report^ speaks of the 
subject as the one of all others the most important and 
requiring speedy Action. Six months later the council 
repeated this opinion^ in reporting on a letter from Tetuan^ 
written by Bartolome de Llanos y Alarcon, who had 
been captured when on his way to Sicily ; he said that 
the Moriscos had been corresponding with the King of 
Morocco and that lately an envoy to the Turk came from 
Cordova to urge an expedition to Spain ; he had at first 
been well received^ but the enterprise seemed difficult 
and he was dismissed.^ 

The hopes of the Moriscos based on these constant 
appeals to Turk and Moor were illusory^ but in 1602 
there appeared substantial reasons for expecting an effec- 
tive intervention on the side of France. The aljamas of 

1 Janer, pp. 277, 279. 



286 DANGERS FROM ABROAD, 

Valencia had appointed five syndics to organize a rebellion. 
Martin de Irionde^ a Frenchman^ resident in Alacuas^ 
brought into communication with them a French spy, 
Pasqual de S. Etienne^ who was informed of what was 
on foot and that they desired to make over the country 
to France. He took Miguel Alami^ one of the syndics, 
to Henry lY. with a memorial in which the Moriscos 
stated that in Valencia they numbered 76,000 families, 
divided into five tribes, each with three syndics who 
alone need to be cognizant of the matter. They could 
furnish 60,000 men who would cost nothing save arms, 
for they would furnish everything else and even pay 
a subsidy in addition. Valencia lay at their mercy, and 
with aid from France they would make him its king. 
The castle of Bernia was the only one garrisoned ; in the 
Morisco towns and villages there were no Christians save 
one or two officials. If a fleet were sent to Denia the 
Spaniards would fly ; the city of Valencia would fall into 
their hands, where there was ample store of arms. They 
could no longer exist as they were, for the Inquisition 
was stripping them of their property ; not content with 
making them pay to it two reales per annum for each 
family, amounting to 152,000 reales a year, it had subtle 
means for grasping more, and told them it was merciful 
in not taking all. The fueros granted to them and to 
those of Aragon by the ancient kings had been demanded 
by Charles V. who had burnt them. In Aragon there 
were more than 40,000 families who would furnish 
40,000 men, for they were similarly oppressed and had 
to pay the same to the Inquisition. If the king would 
march through Navarre he would find more friends than 
enemies, for many Christians would join him. In Catalonia 



NEGOTIATIONS WITH FRANCE. 287 

there were 3000 families and in Castile 5000 ready to die 
in the cause^ and there were Protestants and Jews^ numer- 
ous though concealed — all knew and consoled each other^ 
praying God for an opportunity to attack the Spaniards. 

Henry was sufficiently impressed with the proposal to 
send Alami^ September 2, 1602^ to the Marshal Duke of 
la Force^ Governor of Navarre and Bearn^ with instruc- 
tions to send back with him to Spain a man of experience 
to survey the situation accurately. La Force suggested 
that if Pampeluna could be seized and if Queen Elizabeth 
would simultaneously attack Coruiia^ the King of France 
could help the Valencians. Therefore^ while he sent an 
emissary to Valencia with Alami^ S. Etienne was de- 
spatched to England^ where he. discussed the matter with 
a secretary of the queen who encouraged him^ but when 
at a further stage of the plot he returned there in 1604 
with an Englishman named Thomas Oliver Brachan 
Elizabeth was dead^ and Lord Burghley told them that 
the treaty just concluded with Spain rendered it impos- 
sible for England to take part in the enterprise, but he 
gave them money and advised them to apply to Holland.^ 

Meanwhile la Forceps emissary remained in Valencia 
fifteen months, acquainting himself with the situation^ and 
on his return a Gascon gentleman named Panissault was 
sent there disguised as a merchant. He was present at 
an assembly of sixty-six syndics, held at Toga about 
Christmas, 1604, where Luis Asquer, of Alacuas, was 

^ Hume (Spain, its Greatness and Decay, p. 211) says that, on the 
conclusion of the treaty, James I. sent to Philip III. some documents 
found among Elizabeth's papers showing that the Valencians had been 
endeavoring to induce her and the Swiss Protestants to aid them in a 
rebellion. The Burghley of the text is doubtless Eobert Cecil, then 
Viscount Cranbourne and subsequently Earl of Salisbury. 



288 DANGERS FROM ABROAD, 

elected king and arrangements were made for a rising on 
Holy Thursday (April 7) 1605. Ten thousand Moriscos 
were to gather in the vicinity of the city of Valencia, 
rush in during the night, set fire to the " Holy Sep- 
ulchres ^^ erected in the churches, which would draw all 
the Christians to extinguish them, and by the cry of 
" Francia ! Francia ! '^ secure the support of the innu- 
merable Frenchmen residing there, so that the city could 
be pillaged and a large store of arms be secured. Panis- 
sault returned to France perfectly satisfied ; the Moriscos 
promised to raise 80,000 fighting men, to deliver three 
cities, one of them a seaport, and as an earnest they paid 
over at Pan 120,000 ducats to la Force, who took Pan- 
issault to the king and showed him the map which he 
had made, the places necessary to be fortified, and every 
requisite for the execution of this great design, which 
would overturn the Spanish monarchy. Henry was 
much pleased, but la Force tells us simply that circum- 
stances at the time were not favorable, and the plan was 
postponed. The truth probably is that one of the original 
five deputies, Pedro Cortes, of Alacuas, turned traitor ; 
the plot in some way was revealed, and when, June 23, 
1605, he and S. fitienne, Alami and Irionde were sen- 
tenced by the viceregal court of Valencia, his life, was 
spared. It was also said at the time that information 
came from James I. ; that the Inquisition of Aragon dis- 
covered the matter when trying some Moriscos for apos- 
tasy, and that details of the plot were received from 
several other sources.^ 

1 Memoires du Due de la Force, I. 217-20, 339-45.— Bleda, Cronica, 
pp. 925-29. — Guadalajaray XavieiT, fol 94-96 ; Guadalajara in Historia 
Pontifical, V. 129-30. 



DEEAD OF MULEY GIDAK 289 

This failure resulted in quiet for two or three years, 
but, in 1608, there was a fresh alarm, which was not 
easily allayed. In Morisco a civil war was raging 
between King Muley Xeque and his brother Muley 
Cidan. The Moriscos of Valencia sent fifty envoys to 
the latter, representing to him that it would be much 
better for him to reconquer Spain, which was destitute 
of soldiers and of arms, for nearly all the latter were in 
their possession. They would furnish 200,000 men, and 
if he would bring 20,000 and seize a port he would find 
no resistance inland, for Spain was exhausted and in no 
condition to resist. Negotiations were also entered into 
with some Hollanders to furnish ships, who replied that 
they would bring enough to build a bridge from Africa 
to Spain. The full significance of this is apparent when, 
early in 1509, Muley Cidan overcame Xeque, and the 
latter sought shelter in Spain and offered the port of 
Alarache in exchange for assistance. Philip III., con- 
sidering the danger imminent, in 1608 communicated 
these reports to the Royal Council and ordered it to con- 
sider the situation to the exclusion of every other subject, 
as it was the one of the most extreme importance. He 
admitted the defenceless condition of Spain ; Muley 
Cidan was their declared enemy ; Sultan Ahmed I. was 
released from the war with Persia and with his own 
rebels ; Spain's Italian possessions were exhausted and 
discontented and ready for rebellion, while at home the 
multitude of Moriscos was eager to throw off the yoke, 
and God must be offended with the long toleration shown 
to these heretics and apostates, who had obstinately re- 
sisted every effort at conversion. He therefore com- 
manded the council to consider the means of preserving 

19 



290 DANGERS FROM ABROAD. 

the peace of the kingdom, short of slaughtering them all^ 
and also plans for organizing a military force sufficient 
for defence.^ 

This immediate danger passed away ; when the Moriscos 
sent another mission to the victorious Muley Cidan he 
laughed at them and told them he was not seeking adven- 
tures outside his own dominions ; though he came in sight 
of Tangier he did no damage, for he desired to avoid irri- 
tating Spain, and he assured the merchants that they could 
trade without interruption. Besides, the tables were turned 
when Muley Xeque^s son defeated Cidan, and, moreover, 
Ahmed I. sent his fleet against the Italian coasts.^ But 
however unfounded these fears may have been, there was 
genuine peril from another quarter. In the comprehen- 
sive plans of Henry lY. for the permanent humbling of 
the power of Spain, the Moriscos were not forgotten. 
Although those of Valencia were expelled in the autumn 
of 1609, and those of Aragon in the spring of 1610, it 
was thought that enough were left to cause grave em- 
barrassment to Spain. While Lesdiguieres, with the 
assistance of Savoy, was to invade Italy, and Henry 
himself was to lead into Flanders an army assembling 
at Chalons, la Force, with ten thousand men, was to 
attack Spain with the co-operation of the Moriscos, with 
whom relations had been resumed. He and the king 
were consulting over it on the fatal fourteenth of May, 
1610, and he was in the royal carriage that afternoon 
when in the Rue de la Ferronerie the knife of Ravaillac 
released Spain from a most serious danger, for although 

1 Janer, p. 274.— Cabrera, Kelaciones, pp. 364, 366, 367, 374. 

2 Cabrera, Eelaciones, pp. 367, 372, 380-1. 



PLANS OF HENRY IV, 291 

the expulsion had by this time been virtually accom- 
plished, the Spanish forces by land and water were in 
no condition to make head against the comprehensive 
plans organized by Henry.^ As the Baron de Salignac, 
the ambassador at Constantinople, wrote to Henry, May 
2, 1610, no matter how many Moriscos are banished, 
there will be enough left to give the Spaniards trouble ; 
war, which elsewhere would cost a crown, will not cost 
a farthing there, and when it breaks out there, Spain will 
find it harder to raise a maravedl than it would be to 
raise a doubloon anywhere else.^ Fruitless as were all 
these plots and plans they at least show that the most 
experienced men of affairs in Europe clearly recognized 
that the relations which Spain had created with her Mo- 
risco population weakened her essentially both for attack 
and defence. In the existing political situation this was 
a position from which extrication was necessary at almost 
any cost. 



1 Memoires du Due de la Foree, I. 217, 221-22. 

2 Ambassade en Turquie de Jean de Gontaut-Biron, Baron de Salig- 
nac, II. 353 (Paris, 1889). 



CHAPTER X 



EXPULSION. 



The problem of what to do with the Moriscos had 
long occupied the minds of Spanish statesmen. The 
situation was one of ever-present danger, for which per- 
manent relief was essential, while the halting efforts to 
bring about unity of faith by a combination of persua- 
sion and persecution had been a conspicuous failure. It 
was difficult to revert to the ancestral policy of tolera- 
tion and fairly equitable treatment, which for centuries 
had proved successful with the Mudejares ; for the irre- 
vocable law of the Church forbade the release of those 
who had received the saving waters of baptism, and the 
greed of noble and prelate demanded their oppression. 
There is one document, however, though unfortunately 
dateless and without signature, which shows that there 
were persons who could take a sagacious view of the 
situation. It was natural, the writer says, that those 
who are enslaved and oppressed in the land of which 
once they were the lords, should hate the oppressor and 
his faith. They must be won over by kindness. Prelates 
and priests, engrossed in worldly aims, should devote 
their time and their wealth to this. Direct effort at 
conversion should be dropped, the Inquisition should be 
suspended, those who desire to emigrate should be allowed 
to go. Every effort should be made to alleviate their 



SUGGESTIOI^S. 293 

position and to punish those who wrong them by word 
or act. There has been great expenditure of words and 
very little of dacats. There are prelates who have spent 
thousands in pious works^ who if they had done it in 
seeking the conversion of the Moriscos of their dioceses 
would have rendered in this manner much greater ser- 
vice to God and the king. Seeking to convert the infidel 
in China and Japan is like a man who goes hunting lions 
and ostriches in Africa^ leaving his house full of vipers 
and scorpions. If a hunter can tame and train a wild 
falcon, why cannot a wise and learned prelate, by the 
right methods, gain the heart of a Morisco ?^ 

Such views were too foreign to the dominant tendencies 
in Church and State to obtain a hearing. Because the 
violent methods of the Inquisition, supplemented by the 
perfunctory and niggardly system of the rectories, had 
failed to secure more than an outward show of conformity 
on the part of those who had been coerced to baptism, it 
was held that the only remedy lay in the further use of 
force and injustice. The milder forms of this are exhib- 
ited in some of the suggestions made with more or less 
authority. Garcia de Loaysa, Archbishop of Toledo, in 
1598, proposed that the Moriscos be prohibited from 

^ Janer, p. 266. An allusion to the Escorial would indicate that this 
paper probably belongs to the last quarter of the century. 

In the junta held in Valencia, in 1604, in presence of Philip III., a 
learned doctor of theology argued for kindly treatment. He pointed 
out that the Moriscos had been baptized by force — dragged to the 
Church by the hair— and then treated as apostates, as though they had 
voluntarily accepted the faith, whence it arose that they abhorred the 
Christians and their religion. The only remedy for this, he said, was 
to treat them with loving kindness. In this sense Padre Ignacio de 
los Casas, S. J. , wrote to the Pope, pointing out that in England forty 
years of persecution had made no perverts. — Fonseca, pp. 536-7. 



294 EXPULSION. 

marriage except with Old Christians ; but Fonseca points 
out that such marriages are illegal^ and, moreover, that 
Old Christians would not agree to such unions under the 
existing rules of limpieza, which are the cause of so 
many perjuries, scandals, and quarrels. Besides, the 
Moriscos are so obstinate in their faith that more per- 
verts than converts would result. Then there were some 
who urged that the Moriscos be allowed to live in their 
faith and that baptisms should cease, for it was a prof- 
anation of the sacraments to impose them on those who 
hated them, but that they should be so crushed with 
taxes and imposts that they would voluntarily seek con- 
version ; but again Fonseca proves this to be impossible, 
for the pope would not permit it ; it would be recognizing 
freedom of conscience, forbidden by all the canons ; bap- 
tism is an indissoluble marriage of the soul with God ; 
the Church as a kindly mother embraces all and does not 
willingly part with any ; the Council of Trent insists on 
baptism at birth, and all children of baptized parents 
must be baptized and be coerced with penalties to lead 
a Christian life ; it is a Protestant heresy to claim that 
faith must be free and voluntary ; besides, if the Moriscos 
were allowed to perform their rites publicly there would 
not only be the scandal, but many Christians would be 
seduced to join them.^ Then there was another sugges- 
tion, to take all the children and distribute them among 
Old Christians to be brought up, but Archbishop Ribera 
showed that there were forty thousand births among them 
yearly ; to take the children by force would produce a 
rebellion, and, even without this, the burden on Christians 

1 Fonseca, pp. 360-70. 



SUGGESTIONS, 295 

to provide for them up to the age of ten or twelve would 
be unbearable and it would be impossible to collect the 
expenses from the parents.^ There were not wanting 
impracticable humanitarians who argued that if good 
schools under faithful teachers were established in every 
Morisco community^ and if the parents were compelled 
to send their children to them^ and if the rectors and 
confessors and preachers were men sincere, exemplary, 
chaste, and zealous the trouble would disappear in twenty 
years ; but to this Utopian suggestion it was deemed suf- 
ficient to point to the failure of the royal colleges founded 
in Granada, Valencia, and Tortosa — the one in Granada, 
named San Miguel, was reserved for the converts only 
for fifteen years after the baptism, when it was turned 
over to the Old Christians.^ Plans and projects, indeed, 
there were in plenty. In 1584 the Licentiate Antonio 
de Cordova de Lara addressed a memorial to the king, 
proposing that all the Moriscos should be herded together 
in Sayago, which was a flat country, far from the sea, 
where they would lose the pride conceived from their 
victories in the rebellion of Granada.^ In 1609 there 
was talk of prohibiting to them the callings of muleteers 
or traders or shopkeepers, and of confining them strictly 

1 Ximenez, Vida de Eibera, p. 387. About 1575 Dr. Miguel Tomas 
Taxaquet (subsequently Bishop of Lerida) in his book ''De Collegiis 
instituendis " advocated seizing on a given day all Morisco children, 
placing them in colleges to be taught and then giving them to Old 
Christian masters. Bishop Perez of Segorbe, in 1595, quotes this with 
favor and says the expense could be met by taking the property of the 
parents. — Archivo de Simancas, Inqn de Valencia, Legajo 205, fol. 3. 

2 Fonseca, p. 376. 

'^ Danvila, p. 205. Sayago is a partida of Zamora, along the river 
Duero — a district absurdly insufficient. 



296 EXPULSION. 

to husbandry^ to avert the evils of intercommunication 
between them.^ 

Although these speculations have their interest^ as in- 
dications of public opinion^ their importance otherwise 
was purely academic. Rulers and statesmen were con- 
cerned with measures far more radical and heroic. In 
1598 the Venetian envoy^ Agostino Nani, writes that ex- 
pulsion is considered too prejudicial^ as it would depopu- 
late the land ; that sometimes the idea has been enter- 
tained of a Sicilian Vespers, at others the castration of 
all male infants, and the former measure was advocated 
by Gomez Davila of Toledo in a long memorial addressed 
to Philip III., in which he drew a frightful picture of the 
impending dangers.^ Hideous as was this project, it was 
resolved upon at one time and came near being attempted. 
In 1581, when Philip II. was in Lisbon, regulating his 
newly acquired kingdom of Portugal, a junta of his chief 
counsellors, including the Duke of Alva, the Count of 
Chinchon and Juan de Idiaquez, concluded to send the 
Moriscos to sea and scuttle the vessels, reserving only 
those who could be catechised and those who desired to 
stay, for it was not deemed wise to add to the already 
numerous population of Africa ; it was resolved that 
when the fleet returned from the Azores the matter 
should be executed by Alonso de Leyva, but it was 
abandoned, because when the fleet arrived it had to be 
sent to Flanders. When, in 1602, Philip III. was in- 
formed of this he expressed his pleasure on account of 
the justification which it afforded for what was then in 

^ Cabrera, Kelaciones, p. 371. 

^ Relazioni Yenete, Serie I. T. V. p. 486. — Guadalajara y Xavierr, 
fol. 74. 



THEOLOGICAL FEROCITY. 297 

contemplation.^ A variant of this was the proposition^ 
in 1590, that the Inquisition should proceed against all 
the Moriscos of the crown of Castile, without sparing 
the life of a single one^ — either inflicting natural or civil 
death, or perpetual exile, or the galleys for life.^ Not 
much more humane was the suggestion of Archbishop 
Eibera to enslave all the males of proper age and send 
them to the gallevs or to the mines of the Indies, per- 
haps depleting them gradually by taking every year four 
thousand youths for each service.^ 

Ferocious and inhuman as were all these projects, 
they evoked no scruples of conscience. Theologians 
there were in plenty to prove that they were in accord 
with the canons. By baptism the Moriscos had become 
Christians ; as such they were subject to the laws of the 
Church, and as heretics and apostates they had incurred 
the death penalty. Anything short of that was benig- 
nity and mercy, while their guilt was too notorious to 
demand proof or trial. A common sentence involving 
them all would be a service to God. So reasoned Arch- 
bishop Ribera, who did not merely reflect the brutality 
of the age, for, in the proceedings for his beatification 
which were concluded in 1796, all his writings were 
closely scrutinized by the Sacred Congregation of Rites, 
and there was found in them nothing contrary to ortho- 
dox doctrine and practice.^ Even more outspoken was 
Fray Bleda, who proved by irrefragable authorities that 
the Moriscos could all be massacred in a single day, or 
the king could condemn all the adults to death and the 

Dan Vila, pp. 250-4. ^ i)^^^ p^ 221. 



^ Danvila, pp. 250-4. 

^ Ximenez, Yida de Ribera, p. 384, 

* Ibid. pp. 323, 380-84. 



298 EXPULSION, 

rest to perpetual slavery^ or he could sell them all as 
slaves to Italy or the Indies^ or could fill his galleys 
and liberate the Christians serving there^ especially the 
clerics^ and abolish the custom by which the superiors of 
the Orders send their peccant brethren to the galleys to 
save the expense of keeping them in prison. He urged 
massacre in preference to expulsion^ arguing that it would 
be a work of great piety and edification to the faithful 
and a wholesome warning to heretics^ and^ when expul- 
sion took place, his aggressive piety found expression in 
the hope that, when piled upon the African coast, they 
would, by dying, aggravate the pestilence which, the pre- 
vious year, had carried off 100,000 Saracens. Bleda^s 
work was not only approved by all the authorities in 
Spain and the expense of its printing defrayed by Philip 
III., but when his rival, Fonseca, sought to prevent its 
introduction in Rome, it was authoritatively examined 
and pronounced free from error, and Clement VII. read 
it with pleasure at the suggestion of his confessor. Car- 
dinal Baronius.^ 

In the midst of all these conflicting projects the idea 
of expulsion gradually forged to the front. It had been 

1 Bledse Defensio Fidei, pp. 20, 287, 298-301, 303, 304, 309-10, 345, 
535 ; Cronica, pp. 948, 957. 

I have met with few books more calculated to excite horror and detes- 
tation than the Defensio Fidei. Christianity as there presented is a re- 
ligion of ruthless cruelty, eager to inflict the most pitiless wrongs on the 
defenceless. Moloch has usurped the place of Christ, and the bloody 
sacrifice of those of different faith is the most acceptable offering to 
their Creator. The most deplorable feature is that the learned author 
has incontrovertible authority for all his hideous conclusions — utter- 
ances of the Fathers, decrees of councils, decretals of popes and decisions 
of the most eminent theologians. 



OPPOSING VIE WS. 299 

rendered familiar by the action of Ferdinand and Isabella 
for Castile and of Charles V. for Aragon^ although the 
artificial barriers thrown around it showed that it was 
then merely a device to coerce the Moriscos to baptism. 
After this and the expulsion of the Jews in 1492^ there 
could be no doubt as to the competence of the crown to 
decree such a measure^ and the only question was as to 
its expediency. There were powerful parties on both sides. 
In the kingdoms of Aragon^ which, after the rebellion 
of Granada^ were those chiefly concerned, owing to the 
denseness of the Morisco population, the interests of the 
nobles and gentry and ecclesiastical foundations were 
deeply involved in retaining a class from which their 
revenues were chiefly derived ; their influence was great, 
and they made it felt whenever action on the subject was 
proposed. It is to their fear of losing their vassals that 
we must doubtless attribute the curious fact that in all 
the prolonged disaussion of the subject the simple expe- 
dient seems never to have been seriously considered of 
allowing the discontented ones freely to expatriate them- 
selves, although their increasing numbers and the dimi- 
nution of the Spanish population was a matter of great 
anxiety. Fray Bleda, who for twenty-five years devoted 
his energies to ridding the land of the hated race, during 
which he paid three visits to Rome, complains bitterly 
of the opposition which he experienced. The nobles, he 
says, for eighty years had postponed a decision of the 
question, involving it in a thousand clouds of disputa- 
tion, and they expect to continue it for ages to come. 
The junta, assembled by the king to consider the matter, 
consisted largely of laymen whom the nobles could influ- 
ence, and it was in the habit of reporting to Eonie that 



300 EXPULSION, 

the trouble lay in the avarice of the bishops and the evil 
example of the rectors ; it had sole control^ and no one 
dared to act independently. Archbishop Ribera once 
asked him, with regard to his visits to Rome^ whether he 
was not afraid of the junta, to which he replied that he 
must obey God rather than man. In 1603 Inquisitor- 
General Guevara induced the vicar-general of Bleda^s 
Dominican Order to forbid him to treat of the matter in 
either Rome or Madrid, but, in 1607, he obtained licence 
to go to Naples, and he managed in May, 1608, to obtain 
an interview at Frascati with Paul V., who granted him 
permission to go to Rome in spite of a remonstrance from 
his vicar-general.^ 

Still, as the only practit^able remedy, expulsion grew 
in favor as the danger of revolt and invasion increased 
and the prospect of converting the Moriscos or of recon- 
ciling them to their fate appeared more hopeless. As 
early as 1551 Pedro de Alcocer says that the evil of the 
pestilent communication of the Moriscos will go on in- 
creasing if it is not stopped by driving them all out.^ 
The rebellion of Granada was a warning not to be lightly 
overlooked, and the remedy of dispersing them through- 
out Castile had only spread and intensified discontent. 
The ferocious expedient suggested by the junta of Lis- 
bon, in 1581, shows how real was the terror felt by ex- 
perienced statesmen, and when that was abandoned there 
seemed to be nothing left but deportation abroad. In 
1582 the Inquisitors of Valencia presented an elaborate 
report in which they discussed the various alternatives and 

1 Bledse Defensio Fidei, pp. 227, 228 ; Cronica, pp. 882, 964, 971. 
^ Pedro de Alcocer, Hystoria o Descripcion de la imperial cibdad de 
Toledo, Lib. i. cap. 117 (Toledo, 1554). 



IRRESOLUTION. 301 

concluded in favor of a scheme of shipping the Moriscos 
of Valencia to the fisheries of Newfoundland, under the 
guard of soldiers, who should receive grants of land and 
allotments of vassals, as did the conquistadores in the 
Indies — the main difficulty in the way being the nobles, 
who oppose all change. Ribera at the same time sub- 
mitted an alternative plan of exile or of extensive execu- 
tions of justice by which in a short time none should be 
left. All these propositions were laid before Philip, who 
replied with characteristic irresolution, discussing details, 
as though expulsion from Valencia was settled, and refer- 
ring the matter back to his advisers, as though everything 
had to be considered afresh, to which the junta responded 
by suggesting that he consult with four or five of the 
principal lords of Moriscos.^ It was the eternal story of 
vacillation under which nothing was done and everything 
drifted. In 1584 he again seriously considered the project 
of expulsion, but laid it aside in favor of the enterprise 
of the Great Armada, and, in 1588, the Council of State 
urged him vigorously to come to some decision in view 
of the perilous state of the land, filled with enemies burn- 
ing to avenge their wrongs, and rapidly increasing, while 
the Old Christians were diminishing. Soon afterwards it 
reported that Quiroga, the inquisitor-general and Arch- 
bishop of Toledo, was alarmed about the great numbers 
of Moriscos in Castile and especially in Toledo, to which 
Philip responded by suggesting that the Inquisition should 
ascertain how many families of them there were.^ 

That, in 1590, the whole subject was to be threshed out 

1 Danvila, pp. 196-200. 

2 Guadalajara y Xavierr, fol. 61. — Danvila, pp. 217-18. 



302 EXPULSION. 

anew appears from a circular letter of Inquisitor-General 
Quiroga to the several tribunals, asking in the name of 
the king for opinions as to whether the Moriscos ought 
to be allowed to remain or had better be expelled^ with 
the arguments on each side^ and the means they would 
propose for carrying out expulsion.^ This letter was 
probably suggested by a consulta of the Council of State^ 
May 5, 1590, in which, after suggesting several more or 
less cruel propositions, it leans in favor of perpetual 
banishment.^ No action resulted, and the royal secre- 
tary, Francisco de Idiaquez, in a letter of October 3, 
1594, expresses natural impatience that some speedy 
decision was not reached in place of eternally debating 
the subject and then forgetting it, as has been the case 
hitherto and, he fears, will continue to be. He had 
twice spoken to Quiroga about making the Inquisition 
take a census of the Moriscos, but did not know whether 
anything had been done. The king had recently sent 
him a paper from some zealous but unpractical person, 
who argued that the existing scarcity arose from over- 
population, which would be relieved if the Moriscos were 
expelled. So far from this being the case, Spain had less 
inhabitants than for the last two or three centuries. If 
the presence of this vile race, adds Idiaquez, were as safe 
as it is profitable, there is not a corner of land that should 
not be placed in their hands, for they alone would bring 
fertility and plenty by their skill and their thrift, which 
would reduce the price of provisions and, through these, 
of other products. Cheapness is not caused by scanty 

^ Arcliivo Hist. Nacional, Inq^ de Valencia, Leg. 5, No. 1, fol. 254. 
(See Appendix No. XII. ) 
2 Danvila, p. 221. 



FUTILE EFFORTS AT CONVERSION, 303 

population^ but by dense^ if they will work ; the high 
prices are the result of the vice, the idleness, the luxury 
and the excessive superfluity of all classes.^ It is refresh- 
ing to hear the voice of a rational being rising in the 
desert of prejudice, passion and fanaticism. 

Philip^s feeble health by this time was forcing him to 
take a constantly diminishing part in the active business 
of government, and to his habitual irresolution w^as thus 
added the impossibility of preserving a consistent line of 
policy amid the conflicting views of his ministers, lay and 
clerical.^ It is not surprising, therefore, that, in 1595, 
there was a change of policy. Philip convened another 
junta to organize another effort to instruct the Moriscos. 
It was assumed that this was the duty of the bishops, 
who were ordered to undertake it and to endow the recto- 
ries. The aljamas complained of the ignorance of those 
appointed, and asked for pardon of past offences and time 
for future instruction, all of which resulted in the Edict 
of Grace of 1599 and the final futile effort to get the 
Moriscos to take advantage of it.^ At the same time the 
bishops of Valencia had been called upon for reports on 
the situation ; some of these have been preserved, and 
among them that of Perez, Bishop of Segorbe, who re- 
views the whole subject in detail, and, after considering 
the various projects for relief, enters at much length into 
the question of expulsion, which is evidently regarded 
as the one effective measure ; all the arguments in 

1 Danvila, p. 227. 

2 See the despatch, April 27, 1594, of the papal envoy, Camillo 
Borghese, in Hinojosa, Bespachos de la Diplomacia Pontificia, I. 378 
(Madrid, 1897). 

3 Danvila, pp. 227, 228. 



304 EXPULSION. 

its favor are given and then those against it, which are 
answered with a good deal of doubtful casuistry to prove 
that it is licit/ Bishop Esteban, of Orihuela, concludes 
in favor of giving a reasonable time for instruction, and 
if that failed the king could commence by taking the 
adults in other parts of Spain, and then the children, 
when, if this did not suffice, he should reduce them all to 
slavery and scatter them among the Old Christians.^ 

We have seen (p. 170) the conflicting opinions and 
interminable discussions which occupied the last year of 
Philip^s life. His end came at last, September 13, 1598, 
in a fashion which the innumerable victims of his policy 
might well regard as retribution for their wrongs. Con- 
sumed by gout, strangled with asthma, for almost two 
months he lay nearly motionless and with but enough of 
life to render him capable of suffering. Covered with 
tumors and abscesses, which when opened continued to 
discharge till the stench in the death-chamber could not 
be overcome by the strongest perfumes, the long-drawn 
agony was greater than any of his executioners had in- 
vented for the torture chamber. Yet his bearing through 
all this showed the sincerity of conviction which had in- 
spired the most ruthless of his acts. No spectre of Cazalla 
or Carranza, of Montigny or Egmont came to disturb the 
serenity of his conscience. He never lost his patient 
resignation to the will of God, nor his steadfast convic- 
tion that the death for which he prayed was but the gate- 
way to a happier life. Such sins as were inseparable from 

1 Archivo de Simancas, Inq^i de Valencia, Leg. 205, fol. 3. 

2 Danvila, p. 229. — In 1597 Dr. Martin Gonzalez de Cellorigo, advo- 
cate of the Inquisition of Valencia, addressed a memorial to Philip 
urging the scattering of the Moriscos of Valencia. — Ibid. p. 232. 



DEATH OF PHILIP IL 305 

human frailty were washed away in the general confes- 
sion^ to which he devoted three days^ and the resultant 
purgatory disappeared before the papal indulgences con- 
ferred on the relic of Sant^ Albano^ which he grasped in 
his dying hand.^ Thus he passed away peacefully^ his 
weary life-work conscientiously accomplished. God had 
entrusted him with power almost supreme ; that power 
carried with it the responsibility of defending the king- 
dom of God on earth, and he had so used it according to 
the light vouchsafed him. If this had resulted in the im- 
poverishment of his people and the misery of countless 
thousands, the fault lay not with him, but with the beliefs 
in which he had been trained. Yet he could scarce hide 
from himself that his laborious reign of forty -two years 
had been a failure. The three great objects of his most 
strenuous endeavors had been England, France and the 
Netherlands. England had destroyed his armada, and 
her corsairs plundered his shipping and his colonies with 
impunity. In France the League, on which he had 
lavished his resources, had gone to pieces, and Henry 
IV., his deadliest enemy, had been recognized and 
favored by the papacy. Holland had been irrevocably 
lost, and it was exhausting his strength to maintain his 
grip on Flanders. The only substantial success which 
he had to show for his tortuous policy and squandered 
millions was the robber-conquest of Portugal, to be 
wrenched from the enfeebled hands of his grandson. 

With the accession of his son, the young Philip III., 
the position of the Moriscos became distinctly worse, 

^ Gustav Turba, Beitrage zur Geschichte der Habsburger, cap. vi. 
(Wien, 1899). 

20 



306 EXPULSION, 

although^ curiously enough^ neither in the will and 
codicil, nor yet in the minute detail of the secret in- 
structions drawn up by the dyiug king for the guid- 
ance of his successor is there an allusion to them.^ 
Popular religiosity was rising, as seen by the foundation 
about this time of innumerable monasteries and other 
similar establishments. Still more menacing was the 
absolute subjection of i\\Q monarch to his favorite the 
Duke of Lerma, who, as Marquis of Denia, was lord of 
numerous vassals, whence he might be expected to favor 
them were it not that his estates on the Valencian coast 
were peculiarly exposed to the ravages of corsairs. His 
temper with regard to them is sufficiently indicated by 
his presenting a written opinion, February 2, 1599, argu- 
ing that all between 15 and 60 years of age were Moors 
and deserved death; they could well be enslaved and 
sent to the galleys and their property be confiscated, 
while the women and men over 60 could be shipped to 
Barbary and the children be educated in seminaries — a 
project which was recommended by the Council of State, 
although it also discussed a plan of scattering them among 
Old Christians, one to every fifty inhabitants in places of 

1 Testamento y Codicilo del Eey D. Felipe 2*^ (Madrid, 1882) — 
Gustav Turba, op. ciL, pp. 119-43. — Palma Cayet, Chronologie Septe- 
naire, fol. 29-31 (Paris, 1611).— Sully, (Economies d'Estat, I. 409-12 
( Amstelredam, poiius Chateau de Sully, 1638). 

The letter of Bongars to Sully, enclosing a copy of the Instructions, 
Oct. 27, 1598, describes the sufferings of Philip with evident relish — 
^*ce grand Monarque qui avoit tant vexe et trauaille les autres, a luy 
mesme este crucie et miserablement afflige plus de huict ou neuf mois 
durant, de tres-espouuentables et langoureux accidens, son corps estant 
extenue et descharne comme une Schelette, couuert de sordides et 
boiieux ulceres, puans comme une sentine et ronge de poux et de ver- 
mine comme un Herodes.^^ — Ibid. p. 408. 



RIBEEA'S MEMORIALS. 307 

not less than 500 population. That speedy action was 
deemed inevitable was shown by the decision of the coun- 
cil during 1599 to gather secretly the necessary forces^ to 
ascertain the numbers of the Moriscos^ to commence with 
Castile and then determine what to do with Valencia and 
Aragon.^ 

Stilly the papal briefs for the Edict of Grace had been 
received^ and it remained to be seen what would be the 
result. Archbishop Ribera sought to render it more 
effective by issuing a printed pastoral in which he 
warned the Moriscos that if gentle means proved fruit- 
less the king had resolved on expulsion^ and he told the 
nobles that the only way to keep their vassals was to in- 
duce them to turn Christian. This frankness alarmed 
the Council of State^ which ordered the withdrawal of 
the letter ; if the priests and preachers had said anything 
of the kind they must take it back. In no way must the 
Moriscos be informlid in advance of their approaching 
destruction. Orders were also sent to the Count of Bena- 
vente^ Viceroy of Valencia, to the effect that, during the 
progress of instruction, steps be taken to guard the king- 
dom, and he was asked whether it would be possible to 
disarm the Moriscos.^ 

The Edict of Grace, as we have seen, of course proved 
nugatory, and towards the close of 1601 Archbishop Ribera 
addressed a memorial to the king, reciting his personal 
experience of its futility. Religion was the foundation of 
the kingdoms of Spain, and on the failure of the Armada 
he had told Philip II. that it was a warning from God 
to purify his own dominions before endeavoring to sup- 

1 Danyila, pp. 233, 239, 240. ^ j^id. pp. 243, 244. 



308 EXPULSION. 

press the heretics of other lands^ while the same lesson 
was taught by the defeat of the recent expedition to 
Algiers. He dilated with much force on the dangers to 
which Spain was exposed^ abhorred as it was by all other 
nations and exposed to attack by England through Por- 
tugal^ by France through Navarre and Aragon, and by the 
infidel on the coast, with 90,000 fiercely hostile fighting 
men in its midst to aid them. Roderic lost Spain when 
there was not a single Moor in it, and the rebellion of 
Granada required troops to be brought from Germany and 
Italy ; it cost 60,000 Spanish lives, and finally terms had 
to be made with the rebels, including free passage to their 
five or six hundred Turkish auxiliaries. For his memorial 
Ribera was warmly thanked by the Duke of Lerma and 
by Fray Gaspar de Cordova, the royal confessor, and, 
December 31, 1601, the king also thanked him and asked 
him to set forth the gentle and profitable remedies which 
he stated that he could suggest. To this he replied in a 
long paper, which was practically an exposition of the 
opening sentences, in which he quoted the Old Testament 
texts ordering the enemies of God to be slain without 
mercy and setting forth the duties of kings to extirpate 
them. The Moriscos are obstinate, dogmatizing heretics, 
and the only remedy is to drive them out of Spain : evils 
to be cured must be torn up by the roots, leaving no frag- 
ments to send up fresh shoots. This is the benignant and 
gentle method to which he had alluded — that the king 
shall, by secret inquisition through bishops and priests, 
obtain proof of the apostasy and treason of the Moriscos, 
and then by public sentence condemn them to exile and 
confiscation. That it is benignant and gentle he proves 
because they have merited death, and benignity is a virtue 



QUESTION OF JURISDICTION, 309 

proper to kings^ and besides^ to massacre such a multitude 
would cause general horror. The only scruple lies in the 
invasion on the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical judges^ 
who would be deprived of inflicting the punishments 
provided by the canons^ but this could be remedied by 
the pope. Otherwise the king need have no scruple of 
conscience ; he will liberate his faithful vassals from 
oppression and enrich the royal treasury/ 

Ribera claimed and received the credit of producing 
the final catastrophe^ but this was undeserved. He may 
have had some influence in quieting the royal conscience, 
if Philip had any scruples, which is doubtful ; but there 
were much more learned theologians in plenty to do this, 
and probably the most that he accomplished was to call 
attention to the fact that the secular power, in a matter 
of heresy, could act only under ecclesiastical mandate. 
To obtain a papal decree or an inquisitorial sentence 
against a whole race, as had been suggested by church- 
men, would be incompatible with the secrecy which the 
preparations for expulsion demanded. It was probably 
on this account, and to avoid trenching upon the spiritual 
jurisdiction, that the measure when resolved upon finally, 
seven years later, was treated exclusively as an affair of 
state and, except a vague allusion to the service of God, 
only secular reasons were advanced in its justification.^ 

^ Ximenez, Vida de Eibera, pp. 367 sqq., 374-5, 376 sqq. 

^ So far as credit is concerned, Fray Bleda had been a much more 
efficient agitator than the Blessed Juan de Eibera. His account of his 
OAvn career shows how completely the rectories were used as mere pre- 
ferment. In 1585, when he was yet only an acolyte, Eibera gave him 
the rectory of Corvera and admitted him to deacon's orders. He served 
his rectory with a vicar and, on his second visit to it, he chanced to enter 
the church as the vicar was elevating the host on a feast-day. He was 



310 EXPULSION. 

The fact is that, on January 2, 1602, the junta, consist- 
ing of Lerma, the Count of Miranda, Juan de Idiaquez, 
and Gaspar de Cordova, the royal confessor, had already 
presented an important consults which virtually outlined 
the eventual action. It stated that the matter was the 
most important one that the king had to consider. The 
French intrigues in Aragon were known or suspected, 
for they were alluded to as something that might at any 
moment become serious. In place of commencing with 
Castile, as formerly proposed, the work should begin in 
Valencia and also, if possible, in Aragon, sufficient forces 

shocked at the irreverence of the Moriscos, who made a jest of it; he 
returned to Valencia and offered to resign his rectorship, but Kibera 
refused to permit this, and he concentrated his thoughts on the best way 
to rescue the sacrament from these insults. When he was ordained to 
the priesthood he entered the Dominican Order to escape from the 
rectory, and, after the usual residence of new members for some years 
in a convent, he went to Rome in 1591 to represent the irreverence of the 
Moriscos to the sacrament. Gregory XIY. gave him a letter to Philip 
II. and Cardinal Alexandrine one to Ribera, who rewarded him with 
the commendation to the rectory of Sollana for a year, which he em- 
ployed in writing his book od the miracles of the sacrament. To 
acquaint himself thoroughly with the misdeeds of the Moriscos he 
devoted eight years to teaching them in Ayelo, Alcocer, Gavarda and 
other places, and thus was fully equipped for the agitation which he 
carried on unceasingly to the end. Ribera's activity, he says, was 
aroused somewhat tardily. When, in 1597, he showed the archbishop 
his treatise on the apostasy of the Moriscos, and told him that he pro- 
posed to print it, the latter discouraged him, saying that their errors 
were not cause of infection of the faithful, but when subsequently he 
. learned of some cases of perversion he ordered Bleda to print it. 
Although, as a theologian, Ribera held the theoretical opinion that the 
Moriscos were apostates, in practice he followed the common view that 
they were excused through ignorance, admitting them to mass and to 
burial in consecrated ground, thus adopting the allowable plan, when 
there are two probable opinions, of following either, according to cir- 
cumstances, — Bleda, Cronica, pp. 940, 942-44. 



PROJECTS IN 1602. 311 

being provided. Idiaquez and Miranda were in favor of 
sending them to Africa^ reserving the children and those 
who desired to stay ; they were not in favor of massacre 
or scuttling ships, because there may be innocent ones 
among them and the pope would not permit it. On the 
other hand, Lerma and Fray Gaspar thought it terrible 
to send the baptized to Barbary, where they would become 
Moors, and dangerous besides, there being 80,000 Span- 
iards, crazed by being torn from their wives and children 
and stripped of their property ; they would at once return 
to regain them. The pope should be consulted. All four 
recommended that the work be done when the spring was 
well advanced, and that meanwhile troops be raised in 
Italy and the galleys be well manned to keep the French 
in check. In reply to this the king charged the junta not 
to drop the subject until it should be fully decided ; if 
the Moriscos can be expelled with a good conscience he 
prefers that ; it should commence with Valencia, and if 
Aragon can be added, so much the better ; the largest 
possible land and naval forces should be assembled at 
once and the militia of the kingdom should be organized, 
and all haste be made with the preparations. In com- 
pliance with this a pragmatica was drafted, which in its 
comparative mildness reflects the fears which prevailed 
of exciting to rebellion. The Moriscos were given a 
month in which to sell their property and depart from 
Spain, going whither they might choose ; to those who 
wished to pass to Barbary safe passage was offered ; if 
to other lands of Christendom measures would be taken 
to ensure their good treatment, but death and confiscation 
were threatened for all who should overstay the term.^ 

1 Danvila, pp. 250-4. 



312 EXPULSION. 

All this^ as usual, came to nothing. Probably, after 
the fashion of the government of the period, intermin- 
able discussion over details postponed action until the 
immediate danger of the French invasion passed away 
and peace was concluded with England in 1604. Then, 
as we have seen (p. 175), a fresh attempt was made 
to reform the rectories and provide efficient instruction, 
which, of course, was as illusory as ever, although, 
as late as 1607, we find the Council of State resolving 
to await its results before attempting severer measures. 
An efficient reasoji, indeed, is found for these delays 
and shifting policies in the absolute exhaustion of the 
royal treasury — as Juan de Idiaquez remarked, the exe- 
cution of the project of Lisbon, in 1581, had to be sus- 
pended for lack of means, and the same difficulties existed 
still.^ Yet, if Philip had been actuated by the zeal for 
the faith attributed to him in the expulsion of the 
Moriscos, he might have employed on this pious work a 
part of the 1,860,000 ducats paid to him by the Jewish 
New Christians of Portugal, in 1604, for procuring, in 
spite of the protests of the bishops, a papal bull to ab- 
solve them for all past offences of Judaism— a bargain 
which led to the report that the Moriscos proposed to 
offer the same for a similar pardon.^ 

Then, in 1608, came the alarm about Muley Cidan. 
On January 30th a full meeting of the council was held, 
where all the antecedent documents were reviewed and the 
opinion of each member was taken. Archbishop Ribera 
despaired of the conversion of the Moriscos, for the recto- 
ries were of no service in consequence of their meagre 

1 Ibid, pp, 265-66, ^ Cabrera, Eelaciones, p. 227, 



EXPULSION RESOLVED UPON. 313 

revenues ; ignorant and dissolute persons were sent to 
fill them^ who did more harm than good^ but the pope 
had ordered the new effort at instruction and the holding 
of a provincial council^ and it ought to be tried ; never- 
theless, the mildest course would be to deport them all 
to Barbary. Cardinal Sandoval, Archbishop of Toledo, 
said that a sentence could not be pronounced against a 
nation ; the king ought to resolve as God should inspire 
him and act without further conferences. The other 
members all seemed to regard expulsion as inevitable ; 
the Moriscos were increasing and the Old Christians 
diminishing, and in time the former would be in the 
majority ; it would be a blow to the barons, but they 
would be consoled by giving to them the property of 
their vassals, and in a few years their lands would fill 
up. The discussion turned rather upon means and de- 
tails, the precautions to be taken and the necessity for 
profound secrecy ; but the question of what to do with 
the children was an embarrassing one, as there were con- 
scientious scruples about sending the young, who had been 
baptized, to be brought up as infidels. It is significant, 
moreover, that there were ominous hints of putting all 
the adults to the sword or reducing them to slavery.^ 
The provincial council ordered by the pope was duly held, 
November 22d, but expulsion may now be considered 
to have been fully resolved upon, and whatever outward 
efforts were made to instruct and convert were merely to 
conceal from the victims the fate in store for them. 

It was impossible to keep them wholly in ignorance 
that some decisive measure Avas on foot, and the situation 

1 Danvila, pp. 267-9, 



314 EXPULSION. 

grew steadily more agitated. In October^ Tomas de Borja^ 
Archbishop of Saragossa^ reported that many were passing 
to France^ while the whole body was becoming more rest- 
less than usual ; in some places they were forming bands^ 
infesting the highways and killing all Christians. In 
Valencia^ the Viceroy Caracena was exhausting himself 
in proclamations ordering the seizure of arms^ the regis- 
tering of all strangers^ the enforcement of the curfew^ the 
prohibition of shows and games attracting vagabonds.^ 
The shocking condition of the currency^ attributed to the 
Moriscos^ was also a subject of grave solicitude. By this 
time the circulation, almost to the exclusion of the precious 
metals, consisted of a debased coinage known as vellon ; 
when the State was a counterfeiter it was impossible to 
prevent individuals from following so profitable an ex- 
ample, and the Moriscos were especially active in order 
to provide themselves against expected eventualities. As 
early as 1605, there were some of them condemned for it 
in Aragon, when it was shown that they not only coun- 
terfeited the small vellon coinage, but issued reales of 
half -weight, in which the silver and the alloy were equal. 
In Valencia they were bolder, and as the future grew 
more threatening they turned out nail-heads and circular 
scraps of iron and tin, which were eagerly bought in quan- 
tities, for silver or gold, by Christians at one-fifth their 
nominal value ; this stuff was deposited in the bank of 
Valencia, which paid it out as good money, and for fear 
of riots it was ordered to pass current, leading to troubles 
which we shall see hereafter.^ 

1 Danvila, pp. 271, 273. 

^ Bleda, Cronica, pp. 923, 999.— Fonseca, pp. 202-4, 256. 



PREPARA TIONS. 315 

Matters were now finally ripening for action. In 
answer to a call from Philip^ in April^ 1609^ the Council 
of State presented a consulta which is a characteristic 
mixture of the spiritual and the temporal^ representing 
the duty to prevent the offences to God which may invoke 
his wrath to imperil the State^ which is the chief bulwark 
of Christianity. The opinion is unanimous that the 
Moriscos must be expelled ; the fear of the Moors and 
Muley Cidan is acute^ and Lerma even assumes that there 
is danger of their conquering Spain. If other suggestions 
are alluded to it is only to dismiss them^ and it is evi- 
dently a comfort to the members to know that learned 
and pious men have proved that the Moriscos have all 
merited death^ and could be put to the sword or enslaved^ 
although it is agreed that the milder course of expulsion 
is preferable. It is substantially determined that the 
blow be struck in the autumn^ when there will be less 
danger of foreign interference, and that the interval be 
employed in preparation by organizing the militia, bring- 
ing troops from Italy and assembling squadrons to com- 
mand the coasts. The present year is assumed to be the 
time to act, as there is less to be apprehended from Moor 
and Turk. The fate of the Moriscos was thus determined, 
and no time was lost in starting the preliminary prepara- 
tions. Early in May orders were sent to the Viceroys of 
Sicily, Naples and Milan to have the galleys in readiness, 
together with all the troops that could be spared, and at 
the end of June the several squadrons were required to 
rendezvous at Majorca by August 15th. The necessity 
of such action to deter or suppress resistance is manifest 
from a letter to the king from the Viceroy Caracena, as 
late as August 19th, dwelling on the unprotected condi- 



316 EXPULSION. 

tion of Valencia and the utter deficiency of its military 
establishment. Some months previously^ he says^ he had 
taken steps to organize and train the militia companies^ 
which Lerma had ordered when viceroy^ and save this 
the land was apparently defenceless.^ 

Early in August Don Augustin Mexia^ a commander 
of high repute^ was sent to Valencia, under pretext of 
inspecting the fortifications, with full powers to execute 
the plans of expulsion. He bore a letter from the king 
to Ribera, expatiating on the influence which the latter 
had had in assuring him that he could do what he chose 
with the Moriscos. It dwelt on the dangers to which 
the defenceless land was exposed by their appeals to the 
Turk and to Muley Cidan and the promises of the latter, 
and on the little fruit to be expected from further efforts 
to convert them. For which reasons and chiefly for the 
service of God, and confiding in the divine favor, he had 
resolved on the expulsion of this evil race. In this there 
was not an hour to be lost in suggesting other methods 
or in w^eighing difficulties, the chief of which lay in the 
lords of Moorish vassals, and to remove this he relied 
greatly on Ribera^s efforts.^ Even at the last moment, 
however, the councillors were not unanimous. August 
29th Juan de Idiaquez and Manuel Ponce de Leon pre- 
sented consultas calling in question the wisdom of the 
action. The former evidently feared the opposition of 
the whole kingdom, and pointed out the difficulty of 
repopulation ; the latter argued that the coast could be 
amply protected and fortified at the expense of the 
Moriscos and that they could be held in subjection by 

' Danvila, pp, 274-86. ^ ximenez, Vida de Ribera, p. 397, 



EIBEEA HESITATES. 317 

vigorous repressive measures/ It was too late ; the de- 
cisive steps had been taken, and there could be no with- 
drawal. 

Ribera thus had gained the object for which he had so 
earnestly been laboring. Yet when Mexia reached Valen- 
cia, August 20th, and, after conferring over details with 
Caracena and Francisco de Miranda, who was in charge of 
the local militia, Ribera was sent for and read the royal 
letter, his opinion suddenly changed. He selfishly argued 
that the Moriscos of Castile and Andalusia should be ex- 
pelled, when those of the crown of Aragon, finding them- 
selves isolated, would be converted. He urged the loss of 
the censos which they owed, the damage to their lords, and 
the diminution of the tithes and ecclesiastical revenues. 
He proposed that all three should join in a letter to the 
king, urging him to commence with Andalusia, and when 
the conference ended at 4 p.m. he w^as still firm. He 
was told that a courier for Madrid would start at mid- 
night, when he could write what he pleased ; but on con- 
sideration he concluded that the king did not want advice 
but obedience, and he sent to the palace his letter in time 
for the courier, informing the viceroy and Mexia that the 
royal resolution came from heaven and he would further 
it with all his power. Still, he could not reconcile him- 
self to the prospect of poverty, and on September 3d 
he said to Bleda and to the Dominican prior Alcocer, 
" Padres, we may well in future have to eat bread and 
herbs and mend our shoes,'' and he wrote to the king 
pointing out the difficulties and dangers impending.^ 

1 Janer, pp. 282-91. 

^ Bleda, Cronica, p. 988. Where his own interests were not con- 
cerned Ribera gave full play to his impracticable fanaticism. On June 



318 EXPULSION. 

The secret had been well kept. The assembly of the 
bishops, ordered by the pope, had sat until March 9^ 
1609, and had resolved to undertake anew the task of 
instruction. No one anticipated the sudden resolution, 
although suspicion was aroused when Mexia came osten- 
sibly on a duty so much beneath his military rank, and 
it was strengthened by his frequent secret conferences 
with Caracena and Ribera. The Moriscos grew anxious 
and sent one of their number to Francisco de Miranda, 
with a request for a loan of considerable amount in the 
customary form of a censo, arguing that he would refuse 
to take what would prove valueless in case of expulsion, 
when Miranda, penetrating his object, with prompt self- 
sacrifice accepted it and gave an order on his wife for the 
money. ^ In spite of this they commenced to fortify their 
houses, to cease laboring and bringing provisions to the 
city, which suffered in consequence ; the nobles conveyed 
their families to the city in preparation for the worst, and 
Ribera's action in increasing the number of his retainers 
and laying in stores of victuals increased the excitement. 
The members of the Estamento Militar, or House of Nobles 
of the cortes, who were in Valencia, assembled in the Dipu- 
tacion, or Parliament house, and sent a deputation of in- 
quiry to the viceroy, but got nothing but fair words, which 
increased their anxieties ; a proposition to appoint en- 

24th of this year he had written to Lerma protesting against the twelve 
years' truce with Holland, because in the articles he did not see a word 
providing for the inviolable maintenance of the Catholic faith (Ximenez, 
p. 400). He would probably have been still more aggrieved had he 
known that a secret article prohibited persecution for religious belief in 
both Holland and the provinces retained by Spain (Hubert, Voyage de 
TEmpereur Joseph II. dans les Pays Bas, p. 205. — Bruxelles, 1900). 
^ Fonseca, p. 150. 



FINAL PBEPABATIONS, 319 

voys to the king led to a violent debate^ which was con- 
tinued in a second meeting, when hot words passed and 
swords w^ere drawn. A third meeting was held, which re- 
solved on the appeal to the king to represent to him the 
evils of expulsion, the poverty it would entail on the 
nobles, the churches, the monasteries, the gentry and citi- 
zens, whose wealth was invested in the rents charged upon 
the Morisco settlements, amounting to eleven millions of 
ducats, the diminution of the royal revenues for guarding 
the coasts, the desperation of the Moriscos leading to rebel- 
lion, and the enmity of the people to the nobles, inherited 
from the times of the Germania. The envoys performed 
their duty, but were told by the king that they were 
too late, for the edict had already been published in 
Valencia.^ 

Early in September the fleet had left Majorca and by 
the 5th it reached Iviza, where it was joined by the home 
squadrons and the galleons from the Indies. In all there 
were sixty-two galleys and fourteen galleons, carrying 
about eight thousand disciplined troops, which, with the 
land forces, formed an aggregate indicating the magnitude 
of the undertaking and the dangers anticipated in the 
execution. By the 17th they arrived at their several 
destinations at Alicante, Denia and the Alf aques of Tor- 
tosa, and commenced landing the men. Possession was 
taken of the Sierra de Espadan, and the frontiers were 
guarded to prevent the entrance of Aragonese Moriscos.^ 
On the 21st royal letters of the 11th, addressed to the 
Jurados, Diputados, and Estamento Militar were read, 



^ Guadalajara, fol. 109. — Fonseca, pp. 148-58. 
2 Ble.da, Cronica, pp. 984, 989.— Danvila, p. 296. 



320 EXPULSION. 

reciting the renewed appeals of the Moriscos to the Turk^ 
to Muley Cidan^ to the Protestants and to other ene- 
mies of Spain^ who all had promised to aid them ; pointing 
out the evident danger of this and the service to God of 
ending the heresy and apostasy of that evil race^ and an- 
nouncing that he had resolved to expel them all. In this 
enterprise he summoned every one to aid Mexia ; the 
viceroy would tell them what they would gain from the 
property of their vassals^ and in addition they might be 
assured that he would in every way seek to repair the 
damage that would result.^ 

On the 22d was published the edict of expulsion^ which 
had been sent to the viceroy August 4th. This commenced 
with the customary recital of the treasonable correspond- 
ence of the Moriscos with the enemies of Spain and of the 
necessity of placating God for their heresies, wherefore, 
in view of the failure of all efforts to convert them, the 
king had determined to send them all to Barbary. That, 
in comparison with the measures of Ferdinand and Isa- 
bella and of Charles V., the conditions of the expulsion 
were less inhuman, reflects the consciousness of weakened 
power to overcome resistance. These conditions were 
that, under irremissible pain of death, within three days 
after the publication of the edict in the several towns 
and villages, all Moriscos of both sexes, with their chil- 
dren, should depart for embarkation at the ports desig- 
nated to them by a commissioner. They could take with 
them of portable property what they could carry on their 
backs ; they would find vessels ready to convey them to 
Barbary, and would be fed on the voyage, but they must 

^ Janer, p. 297. 



EDICT OF EXPULSION, 321 

take what provisions they could. During the three days 
all must remain in their places of residence^ awaiting the 
orders of the commissioner, and after the three days any one 
found wandering from his habitation could be robbed by 
the first comer and carried to the magistrates, or be killed 
in case of resistance. As the king gave to the lords all 
real estate and all personal property not carried off, if 
any one should hide the latter or bury it, or set fire to 
houses or harvests, all the inhabitants of the place were 
to be put to death. In order to preserve the houses, the 
sugar mills, the rice crop, and the irrigating canals, and 
to instruct the new settlers, six per cent, of the Moriscos 
were allowed to remain, the selection to be made by the 
lords, and in places belonging to the crown by the vice- 
roy, but these were to be only husbandmen, the oldest 
and those who had manifested the best tendency to 
become Christians. Children under four years of age 
desiring to remain could do so with consent of their 
parents or guardians. Children under six, whose fathers 
were Old Christians, were to stay, as well as their 
Morisca mothers ; if the father was a Morisco and the 
mother an Old Christian, he was to go, and children 
under six were to stay with the mother. Also, those 
could stay who for two years had lived among Chris- 
tians without attending the meetings of the aljamas, and 
also those admitted to communion by their priests. Hiding 
or sheltering fugitives was forbidden under pain of six 
years of galleys, and all soldiers and Old Christians were 
strictly forbidden to insult or injure the Moriscos by word 
or deed, while to prove to them that the transfer to Bar- 
bary was to be executed in good faith, after every instal- 
ment had been carried over ten Moriscos were allowed to 

21 



322 EXPULSION. 

return to report to their fellows what their treatment had 
been.^ 

^ Janer, p. 299. The provisions in the edict concerning children 
were a compromise after long discussion, and were not the final policy 
adopted. The question, which to us seems an exceedingly simple one 
— that they should not be separated from their parents — was in reality 
exceedingly embarrassing, owing to the conscientious scruple about 
allowing those who had been baptized to be taken to a land of infidels 
where they would grow up as Moors. To Fray Bleda this had been an 
insuperable obstacle to expulsion — they could not be allowed to go, and 
would be too expensive to retain, so he prefers the alternative of mas- 
sacre. After the expulsion he expresses his deep regret that they could 
not all have been kept (Bledse Defensio Fidei, pp. 345, 352, 557). 
Eibera, in his memorial of 1602, urged that all children under seven 
should be kept and distributed among Old Christians, to whom the king 
could grant them as slaves (Ximenez, p. 379). When at this time a 
project of expulsion was formulated by the junta, it was proposed to 
retain all children, to be brought up in Christian families and taught 
trades and serve until they were 26, but a discussion respecting wet- 
nurses shows the inherent difficulty of the subject, and it proved an 
embarrassing one in the discussion of the Morisco question by the Royal 
Council, Jan. 30, 1608 (Danvila, pp. 255-7, 269). After the expulsion 
edict had been sent to Valencia the matter was still undecided. A junta 
presided over by the king, September 1, 1609, unanimously agreed that 
the children below the age of 10 or 11 should be kept (Danvila, p. 294). 
This was in accordance with a letter from Ribera, in answer to a demand 
from Philip for his opinion, and it greatly pleased the king, but the im- 
pulsive archbishop speedily changed his views, after consulting three 
learned and prudent theologians, and wrote to the king that there was 
no hope of making Christians of those so old — in six years they would 
be marrying, and the whole trouble in time would come over again, so 
that he reduced the limit of age to 5. Then, on subsequent considera- 
tion, he changed his mind again, and, on Sept. 4th, he wrote another 
letter pointing out that according to the best estimates there must be in 
Valencia not less than 60,000 Morisco children under 5 — how could 
they be cared for, and where could at least 6000 wetnurses be obtained ? 
Add to this the difficulty of keeping them in the faith, the fact that the 
Moriscos would let themselves be torn in pieces rather than part with 
their offspring or, if they did so, they would infest the coasts in the hope 
of recovering them, and the plan of retaining the children becomes im. 



QUESTION OF THE CHILDREN, 323 

No time was lost in making the necessary arrangements. 
On the 24th five chief commissioners were appointed to 

practicable. He had submitted these views to his previous advisers, 
adding three more to the number, and he encloses their conclusions as 
his own — which are those which appear in the edict (Ximenez, p. 406). 
Yet as late as September loth at a full meeting of the Council of State 
it was resolved to see about providing wetnurses, and that the fruits and 
movables of the Moriscos should be applied to the children, as well as the 
revenues of the two seminaries, while juntas of theologians were ordered 
to be held in Valencia and Madrid to consider the subject. The one at 
Madrid met under the presidency of Inquisitor-general Sandoval, and 
it probably adopted Kibera's suggestions (Danvila, p. 292). Simulta- 
neously with the publication of the edict, Sept. 22d, Eibera issued a 
letter to all the priests, ordering them to lend all assistance to the offi- 
cials, explaining the details as to the children, and charging them to 
use all tenderness and charity with them (Ximenez, p. 428). 

Considerable efforts were made to neutralize the permission finally 
given for children to accompany parents. Balaguer, Bishop of Ori- 
huela, exerted himself throughout his bishopric to have them left, 
pledging himself to have them brought up as carefully as if they were 
his own, but the parents declared that they would rather dash out their 
brains than have them brought up as Christians (Bleda, Cronica, p. 
1023). Even guardians, although poor, paid nurses to suckle their 
wards, and women were seen who had undertaken three or four. We 
are told that, amid all the ruin caused by the expulsion, nothing so 
afflicted the people as seeing that hell had to swallow so many innocent 
lambs, and arrangements were made to steal as many as possible. Dona 
Isabel de Yelasco, wife of the viceroy, set the example, and by the 
advice of theologians employed her servants, who brought her several, 
whom she rejoiced to see snatched from Satan ; she also sought out 
women about to be delivered and hid them so that the infants should be 
baptized (Fonseca, p. 177). When, in the expulsion from Aragon, 
some 12,000 were quartered in a meadow on the banks of the Tagus, 
they saw an Old Christian couple steal a child, when they raised such a 
tumult' that it was necessary for the commander, Don Alexos Mar y Mon, 
to come and quiet it ; he ordered the most riotous to be hanged in front 
of his quarters, which subdued them, after which he commuted the sen- 
tence to the galleys (Bleda, Cronica, p. 1049). Still, despair occasion- 
ally overcame the claims of nature. When provisions ran out while in 
confinement awaiting embarkation they sometimes sold their children 



324 EXPULSION. 

superintend the embarkation at the designated ports of 
the Alfaques of Tortosa, Vinaroz^ Denia, Valencia and 

to escape starvation for all (Cabrera, Relaciones, p. 393). The same 
thing occurred among those who rebelled in the sierra del Aguar, after 
they surrendered and were on their way to embark at Denia, when chil- 
dren were sold for a handful of figs or a little bread (Guadalajara, fol. 
119). 

In this disastrous attempt at resistance and that at Muela de Cortes 
the soldiers captured large numbers of children and sold them, both at 
home and abroad, for 8, 10, 12 and 15 ducats apiece. The legality of 
this was questioned, and the king decided that he did not grant them as 
slaves, and that those who held them must register them as well as those 
distributed by the royal officials ; they were to be instructed up to the 
age of 12 and then serve for as many years as they had been taken care 
of. Eibera protested against this : they should all be enslaved, so that 
there would be a chance of saving their souls ; people were sending 
them adrift, and there would be 2000 helplessly abandoned. By no 
means all were registered, and many were sent to Italy and elsewhere 
to be sold, leading Philip to ask the pope to make the same regulations 
as he had done. Very large numbers were found, both on this occasion 
and subsequently, among whom were some 12 or 15 years old, giving 
rise to fresh anxiety, for they were infidels and, being very fruitful, 
they would eventually infect the whole world. There was much dis- 
cussion over them. Eibera wanted them sent away, and most of the 
theologians sided with him. Philip decided that those over 7 should 
be expelled and the rest be kept, but it seemed cruel to send such young 
children to Barbary without protectors, and the matter was allowed to 
drift (Fonseca, p. 252; Ximenez, p. 445). 

As we shall see, a somewhat difierent policy was adopted in the other 
kingdoms. The whole question is an interesting illustration of the 
pious eagerness to save souls at any cost to bodies (Guadalajara, fol. 
151) and of the fanatical determination to free the land from heresy. 

There was another class of cases which gave rise to doubts — those 
which were under trial or sentence by the Inquisition. The tribunal of 
Valencia submitted a number of queries as to its duties in view of the 
altered relations caused by the edict, which were answered October 7, 
1609, to the effect that those who were undergoing penance in prison 
were to be sent off as well as those who had been arrested and were 
under trial. Those who had been sentenced to appear in the next auto 
de fe were to be kept for it, except such cases as were at large under bail, 



EIBEBA'S SERMON, 325 

Alicante^ and thirty-two subordinate ones to gather and 
conduct the exiles, with 1500 of the local militia to serve 
as guards and escorts. On the 27th Eibera preached a 
sermon, which was greatly lauded at the time as having 
largely facilitated the acceptance of the royal policy. 
With considerable skill he justified the expulsion by 
scripture texts forbidding friendship and intercourse 
with the infidel and the heretic. He told his hearers 
that the Moriscos had offered to aid the Turk with 
150,000 men, that the next spring would have seen the 
Turkish fleet upon their shores, and he drew an awful 
picture of the time when their brethren and children 
would have been slain and throughout Spain the name 
of Mahomet would have been venerated and that of 
Christ blasphemed. It was to prevent this that the 
king had employed a remedy which, besides being the 
only one, was so admirable, so divine, that it could not 
have been devised by human prudence without illumi- 
nation from above, as an example for the whole world 
and the admiration of all who live and shall hereafter 
live. Who could exaggerate the Christianity, the pru- 
dence, the magnanimity and the greatness of this work ? 
The churches, which had been filled with dragons and 
wild beasts, will be filled with angels and seraphim. All 
should humbly make confession, and he first of all, that 
he had lived for forty years in peace with the Moriscos, 
seeing with his own eyes the blasphemies which they 
committed. Nor did he neglect to offer material conso- 

who were to have a special auto. Those who subsequently to the proc- 
lamation declared themselves to be Moors were not to be arrested unless 
they committed some overt offence or blasphemed the faith, in which 
case they were to be tried and punished as usual. — Janer, p. 306. 



326 EXPULSION. 

lation to the nobles and gentry for the temporary dimi- 
nution of their revenues until matters should settle them- 
selveS; assuring them that this would be fully made up 
by the greater certainty of their collections.^ 

The die was cast^ and was followed by some days of 
anxious suspense. The people^ we are told^ rejoiced^ for 
they hated both the Moriscos and the nobles^ and there 
were symptoms of an uprising against the latter. The 
nobles and gentry grieved over the ruin of their lands^ 
and the religious establishments over the loss of their 
enormous investments in censos on the Morisco commu- 
nities. The Moriscos at first were inclined to resist ; 
they sent envoys to the viceroy, making large offers of 
a servicio to the king and to pay for the defence of the 
coasts, and when these were rejected they busied them- 
selves in endeavoring to procure arms, forging their 
ploughshares and reaping-hooks into pikes, on which, 
together with slings, they mainly depended.^ Then, to 
the general surprise and inexpressible relief of all, obstacles 
seemed to vanish with a completeness in which the pious 
plainly discerned the finger of God.^ The nobles, for the 
most part, obediently accepted the situation and loyally 
lent their aid to facilitate the execution of the decree. 
The Duke of Gandia, who, next to the Duke of Segorbe, 
held the largest number of vassals, wrote to the king, 
October 9th, saying that, on September 28th, the Marquis 
of Santa Cruz had embarked for him five thousand of 
them, whom he desired to be the first in order to quiet 



1 Fonseca, p. 212.— Bleda, Cronica, p. 997.— Ximenez, pp. 411-27. 

2 Fonseca, pp. 165, 198. 

^ Guadalajara, fol. 151. — Juan Kipol, Dialogo de Consuelo por la 
Expulsion de los Moriscos de Espana, fol. 20 (Pamplona, 1613). 



WILLINGNESS TO GO, 327 

the apprehensions of the rest as to the safety of the voy- 
age. It was the ruin of his house, for just then the sugar 
crop should be gathering, but he was content in carrying 
out the holy intentions of the king, to facilitate which he had 
allowed them to sell what they wished of their property. 
This had aided greatly, and had enabled him, with only 
eight men, to go among them and get them off, returning 
home he knew not whether more edified at their willing- 
ness or grieved at the ruin of the land or anxious to hurry 
off the rest from the baronies and the county of Oliva.^ 
The Moriscos, in fact, had suddenly changed their pur- 
pose. They were awed at the sight of the well-armed and 
disciplined troops which had been landed and marched to 
Jativa and by what they heard of the Castilian cavalry 
which was guarding the border. A meeting of their 
alfaquies and leaders was held in which it was agreed 
that resistance was hopeless and submission inevitable, 
the most potent argument being that after defeat their 
children would be taken and brought up as Christians, 
while prophecies were talked of which promised an unex- 
pected blessing. It was consequently resolved that all 
should go, including the six per cent, allowed to remain, 
and any one staying was held to be an apostate. This 
had such an effect that those who had been striving to 
be chosen in the six per cent, and offering large sums to 
their lords now refused to stay, although promised what- 
ever terms they chose to ask. The Duke of Gandia suf- 
fered especially from this ; the cane-crop was the largest 
ever known ; all the operatives in his sugar-mills were 
Moriscos, and no one else knew the processes ; he could 

^ Danvila, p. 301. See also his letter of Sept. 24th in Janer, p. 293. 



328 EXPULSION. 

not import skilled workmen from Madeira or Calabria or 
Granada^ and he vainly proposed to grant whatever they 
wanted to induce them to remain. The only induce- 
ment that would tempt them he could not meet, for they 
offered to stay if guaranteed the free exercise of their 
religion ; he applied to the viceroy, but Eibera declared 
that this was a concession beyond the power of either 
king or pope, for they were baptized.^ 

When once this resolution was reached the Moriscos 
lost no time in converting into coin whatever movables 
they possessed. The land became a universal fair. Horses, 
cattle, sheep, fowls, grain, sugar, honey, cloths, household 
effects were sold at a fraction of their value, and finally 
were given away. Farm animals were turned loose, and 
strangers went around bargaining and purchasing for 
almost nothing. While some of the nobles followed 
Gandia^s example in allowing this, others complained 
of it, for under the edict most of these things enured 
to them. The viceroy, therefore, October 1st, issued a 
proclamation forbidding, under pain of nullity, the sale 
of all real property, animals, grains, oil, censos or debts, 
but this led to imminent danger of rebellion and was not 
enforced,^ 

When once the shock was over of abandoning their 
possessions and leaving the homes of their ancestors, the 
prospect of reaching a land where they could openly enjoy 
the practice of their faith and be free from grinding 
oppression inspired many of them with intense eagerness 
to be off. They competed for places in the first embarka- 

^ Fonseca, pp. 199 sq. — Archive de Simancas, Inqn de Valencia, Leg. 
205, fol. 2.— Bleda, Cronica, p. 1000. 
2 Fonseca, pp. 202 sq.— Janer, p. 303.— Bleda, Cronica, p. 1004. 



DEPREDATIONS. 329 

tion, and the commissioners had no trouble in marshalling 
them and conveying them to the designated ports in large 
companies. The troops marched out to meet them and 
escort them to the galleys, which was necessary to pro- 
tect them from the robbers who flocked thither. Food 
was furnished to those who needed it, the sick were tended 
and strict orders were issued that no one should injure 
them by word or act, so that good reports might encour- 
age those who were to follow. While thus all proper 
effort was made to smooth the path of the exiles it was 
impossible to restrain the savage greed of the Old Chris- 
tians, who had been accustomed to regard the Morisco 
as a being entitled to no rights. They sallied forth 
in squads, robbing and often murdering all whom they 
encountered. Fonseca tells us that in going from Valen- 
cia to San Mateo he saw the roads full of dead Moriscos. 
To check this a royal edict was issued, September 26th, 
ordering that guards^ should be provided to keep the roads 
safe, at the cost of the towns and villages. This proved 
ineffectual and, on October 3d and again on October 6th, 
the viceroy reported to the king that the robberies and 
murders were increasing, giving rise to more anxiety than 
the deportation of the Moriscos, although gallows were 
erected along the roads and swift justice was executed. 
Philip, after due delay, replied that the measures taken 
had been insufficient, the delinquents must be rigorously 
punished, some of the commissioners had been cowardly 
and should be made examples of, for to this was attribu- 
table the risings of the Val del Aguar and of the Muela de 
Cortes. To protect and reassure their vassals some of the 
nobles, like the Duke of Gandia, the Marquis of Albaida 
and others, accompanied them and saw them safely em- 



330 EXPULSION. 

barked ; the Duke of Maqueda even sailed with his to 
Oran.^ 

The first shipment of the exiles was made from Denia^ 
October 2d^ when the seventeen Neapolitan galleys took 
two hundred each. Besides these^ many other vessels 
were brought there^ so that the whole number amounted 
to nearly six thousand. These were speedily followed 
by similar departures from the other ports^ bringing the 
total of the first embarkation to about twenty-eight thou- 
sand. On arrival at Oran they were received by the 
Captain-General, the Count of Aguilar, and lost no time 
in asking to be received as vassals by the ruler of Tlem- 
cen, about 90 miles from Oran. Understanding that they 
brought money with them, he gladly assented and sent 
Cid Almanzor, a captain, with 500 horse to escort them. 
He was accompanied by a rich Jew named Camillo, with 
a thousand camels, to carry the women and baggage, to 
whom they paid 1500 crowns, but they would not start 
till Almanzor left his son as a hostage. Those who were 
sent back to Spain to report carried many letters assuring 
their friends of the good faith with which they had been 
treated, which vastly increased the eagerness to go. Yet 
such was the inbred distrust of the royal word that vast 
numbers preferred to charter ships rather than sail gratu- 
itously in the king's vessels, where they were supplied 
with provisions free, although it cost them 75 reales a 
head for all over 12, and 35 for those younger. To pro- 
tect those who adopted this plan the passage-money was 
deposited in Valencia and was not paid until the ship- 

^ Fonseca, pp. 215 sq., 228. — Bleda, Cronica, p. 999. — Janer, pp. 76, 
307-9.— Panvila, p. 304, 



EMBARKATION, 331 

master brought certificates of the safe landing of his 
passengers^ and to facilitate it all the Spanish ports were 
ordered to send their ships to the Valencia coast^ even 
discharging those which were loaded, and all arrivals at 
Valencia ports were pressed into service. Some 14,500 
thus embarked at the Grao, or port of Valencia, affording 
a spectacle which attracted the ladies and gentlemen of 
the city, and while the ships were waiting for fair winds 
it became a fair in which exquisite Moorish garments, 
rare embroideries, rich gold and silver laces and similar 
articles were bought for a song. At Alicante they came 
with music and song, as though going to a festival, and 
thanking Allah for the happiness of returning to the land 
of their fathers. One of the chief alfaquies being asked 
why they obeyed a simple letter of the king, replied : 
" Do you not know that many of us bought or stole 
boats in which to cross to Barbary with much danger ? 
Then why, when we are offered safe and free passage, 
should we not avail ourselves of it to go to the land of 
our ancestors, under our king the Turk, who will let us 
live as Moors and not as slaves, as we have been treated 
by our masters ? '^ — which suggests how simple a relief 
from the long-drawn agony it would have been half a 
century earlier to have permitted the expatriation of 
those who desired it. Doubtless it was this eagerness to 
go and readiness to pay that led the king to break his 
word, for after the first embarkation the royal ships 
charged passage-money like the private ones.^ 

In all there were three regular embarkations, the process 
lasting for about three months, including, according to the 

1 Fonseca, pp. 212-22,— Bleda, Cronica, pp, 1001-3, 1005-7, 



332 EXPULSION, 

lists kept at the ports^ over 150^000 souls.^ Yet it had 
not all been peaceful. There were some whose distrust of 
the royal promises indisposed them to accept the decision 
of the assembly of alfaquies^ and^ as early as September 
27th, news was brought that those of the Marquisate of 
Lombay were making slings and pikes and grinding 
meal — the sure signs of a rising. There were others 
who were badly treated by the officials sent to gather 
them together — ^^at Dos Aguas for this reason they slew 
the governor and ten or twelve men who abused them, 
and were held to have been justified in doing so, and for 
the same cause some six thousand of the younger men 
took to the mountains. Others refused to go because 
their lords endeavored to deprive them of what they 
were allowed by the edict to take with them. Then 
there came sinister rumors, unfortunately well grounded, 
of the outrages committed by the Moors on those of the 
first embarkation ; these were confirmed by letters from 
Oran, and were exaggerated by the Old Christians, who 
desired to provoke resistance in order to have opportuni- 
ties of plunder. It began to be noticed at the ports that 
there was an absence of the younger men and an undue 
proportion of the older ones and of women and children. 
The Sierra de Espadan had been providently occupied in 
advance by Pedro of Toledo, with 550 men of the Italian 
regiments, who built and garrisoned two forts, and thus 

^ Bleda, Cronica, p. 1020. — The Inquisition of Valencia, which was 
likely to be well informed, put the number at the more moderate figure 
of 100,656, viz. : at Valencia, 17,766 (of whom 3269 were less than 12 
years of age and 1339 were infants at the breast) ; at Alicante, 32,000; 
at Denia, 30,000 ; at Vinaros, 15,200 ; and at Mancofa, 5690. — Archivo 
de Simancas, Valencia, Legajo 205, fol. 2. (See Appendix No. XIII. ) 



RESISTANCE, 333 

anticipated the Moriscos who had designed to seize it ; 
but there were plenty of other mountain refuges for the 
disaffected. One of these was an almost inaccessible 
peak in the Val del Aguar^ to which^ as October drew 
to a close^ those who refused to go streamed in bands, 
travelling by night, and when they had established them- 
selves others came flocking to them from all parts, till 
their numbers were estimated at from 15,000 to 25,000. 
They hoped to maintain themselves till spring, when they 
looked for the ever-promised ignis fatuus of assistance 
from abroad, and they elected as king Melleni Saquien, a 
Morisco, who had been travelling around and exhorting 
them to rise. Another similar gathering took place in 
the Muela de Cortes, an almost inexpugnable spot, being 
a deep valley surrounded by precipitous heights, of which 
the passes were easily defensible. The Moriscos of that 
region had been disposed to resist the commissioners ; 
they were in a state of excitement and were readily per- 
suaded to rise by an outlaw named Pablillo Ubcar. They 
elected as king Vicente Turixi, who sent a proclamation 
through the sierra for all to join him under pain of trea- 
san. From their strongholds they made raids on the 
surrounding country, gathering cattle and provisions, 
burning villages, and desecrating churches. Mexia, ab- 
sorbed in the work of embarkation and fearing to inter- 
rupt it, for awhile paid no attention to these movements, 
and, when reproached by Fray Fonseca, replied that his 
troops would do more damage to the country than the 
rebels, who could readily be reduced when the time came.^ 



1 Bleda, Cr6nica, pp. 999, 1000, 1006, 1009, 1016.— Cabrera, Eela- 
ciones, pp. 385, 389. — Fonseca, pp. 227-34. 



334 EXPULSION. 

His previsions were justified. Against the rebels of 
Aguar he sent, toward the end of the first week of 
November, a couple of thousand men, who occupied 
strategical positions. On the 15th there was a smart 
action in carrying the castillo del Pop, which the 
Moriscos had fortified, in which many of them were 
slain, including their king. Then Mexia came himself, 
increasing his forces to about 6000. As the royal orders 
had been to avoid bloodshed, he offered the rebels most 
liberal terms — that they should return to their villages, 
where they should have fifteen days to collect their prop- 
erty and then thirty days more in which to sell it, after 
which they must embark, taking with them the proceeds. 
They were irresolute, and, as his troops were short of 
provisions, to hasten their deliberations he cut off their 
water-supply. They reopened negotiations, but demanded 
months in which to embark, which Mexia refused, and 
on the 21st he attacked them. It was a massacre rather 
than a battle ; slings and pikes, with an occasional arque- 
bus or cross-bow, were no match for the well-armed 
Spaniards, who mowed them down, and, when they broke 
and fled, slaughtered them without sparing women and 
children. Three thousand Moriscos lay dead, and only 
one Spaniard, Battista Crespo, who was killed by his own 
firelock. The booty taken, chiefly by rifling the bodies 
of the dead, was reckoned at 30,000 crowns. The great 
mass of the insurgents found refuge on the top of the 
mountain, where they could get neither food nor water. 
As the end was inevitable Mexia did not assault them, 
and when news came that those of the Muela de Cortes 
had surrendered, they came down, November 28th, and 
gave themselves up at discretion, in numbers of which 



RISINGS SUPPRESSED. 335 

the estimates vary from 11,000 to 22,000, so starved 
with hunger, thirst, and cold that even the soldiery were 
moved to compassion, although this did not prevent their 
stealing numbers of women and children and selling them 
as slaves. Mexia granted them their lives and property and 
escorted them to the port of embarkation, but the valley of 
Aguar was given up to pillage for twelve or thirteen days.^ 
When news was received of the gatheriug at Muela 
de Cortes, Francisco de Miranda was sent thither. He 
found the insurgents in large numbers, computed at about 
9000, and he called for troops, when the tercio of Lom- 
bardy was despatched to him and the militia of the region 
were called out. There was some negotiation in which 
the insurgents demanded a year in which to prepare for 
expatriation, but they lost heart when they heard of the 
defeat of those of Aguar, and were disappointed as to 
the appearance of the Moor Alfatami on his green horse, 
whom tradition reported to be concealed under the moun- 
tain since the days of King Jayme. When, at daybreak 
on November 21st, the Spaniards advanced no Moriscos 
were seen until some were met at 9 o^clock, who in the 
name of the rest asked for passage to Africa. It was 
agreed that they should be safe in person and property, 
provided they would go to embark within three days. 
The rapacious soldiery, who had promised themselves 
abundant plunder, in their disappointment threw off all 
discipline ; they sacked the village of Royaya, outraged 
the women and seized numbers of children as slaves. 
Only three thousand Moriscos were brought to the port 
of embarkation, the rest having scattered and taken to 

^ Fonseca, pp. 234-46. — Bleda, Cronica, pp. 1009-15. — Danvila, pp. 
305-7. 



336 EXPULSION. 

the mountains to escape the fury of the soldiers. These, 
estimated at two thousand in number, for several years 
gave infinite trouble, killing all the Christians they met 
and committing constant depredations. At one time the 
Governor of Jativa induced many of them to come down, 
but finding that they were to be enslaved they fled back 
to the mountains. A reward was offered for King 
Turixi, dead or alive ; he w^as tracked to a cave, cap- 
tured, and brought to the city, when he was sentenced to 
have hands and ears cut off, to be drawn, torn with 
pincers, hanged and quartered ; but at the execution, 
December 18th, the cutting of hands and ears was 
omitted. He had been confessed twice and reconciled 
twice, and died as a good Christian, making a most 
edifying end, for we are told that he had been a liberal 
almsgiver and devoted to the Virgin and the religious 
Orders. The miserable remnants were hunted down 
gradually, the viceroy paying twenty ducats a head for 
them as galley-slaves. To escape this they offered to 
come in if they should not be sent to the galleys but 
become slaves of individuals, and this was conceded to 
them, so that at length, February 20, 1612, Philip for- 
mally thanked Viceroy Caracena for having cleared the 
mountains. It is characteristic of the monarch that 
while this tragedy was being enacted in his dominions 
during the autumn and winter of 1609-10, Philip was 
occupying himself with hunting and feasting, dances and 
maskings, bull-fights, juegos de cartas and jousting at the 
ring.^ 

1 Bleda, Cronica, pp. 1016-20.— Fonseca, pp. 246-9.— Cabrera, Ke- 
laciones, pp. 385, 388, 390, 393, 404.— Danvila, pp. 307-8.— Janer, pp. 
326, 354. — Archive de Simancas, Inqii de Valencia, Legajo 205, fol. 2. 



AHAGON AND CATALONIA, 337 

Valencia had been the most dangerous district to deal 
with. The slight resistance there^ so readily overcome, 
showed that there need be no apprehension as to the re- 
maining kingdoms, and measures were promptly taken 
to complete the expulsion by successive steps. Aragon 
and Catalonia, although not strictly next in order, w^ere 
so intimately connected with Valencia that they may 
properly be considered here. It is true that the whole 
affair was a violation of their fueros, but we are told 
that it was resolved to pay no attention to this in so 
holy a work, so agreeable to God and so advantageous 
to the whole land.^ The promulgation of the Valencia 
edict of expulsion had naturally alarmed both the 
Moriscos and their lords in the neighboring kingdoms. 
To calm them, Philip, October 20, 1609, ordered the new 
viceroy, the Marquis of Aytona, to learn secretly of the 
archbishop the condition of the Moriscos, and if neces- 
sary to assure them, without involving the royal name, 
that the matter did not concern them. Besides the 
warning from Valencia, those of Catalonia were dis- 
turbed by a disarmament ordered in Lerida, while in 
Aragon the arrest of the leading members of the aljamas 
by the Inquisition was a source of great disquietude. 
Aytona was sworn in as viceroy, November 15th, and 
made every effort to quiet them, telling them that the 
Valencians had rendered expulsion necessary by their 
audacities and that the king had paid no attention to 
Aragon, and he reissued the royal proclamation, pub- 
lished at the time of disarmament, guaranteeing them 
protection. Their bitter experience of royal faithless- 

1 Bleda, Cronica, p. 1048. 

22 



338 EXPULSION. 

ness^ however, rendered them Id credulous, especially as 
the Old Christians began to threaten and maltreat them. 
They abandoned their agricultural labors and commenced 
to sell their movables for what they could get, while their 
creditors and the holders of censos became alarmed and 
proceeded to collect their debts with rigor. The dis- 
turbance of industry and the impending losses led the 
kingdom to send two Diputados to the king with a 
prolix memorial, pointing out the enormous damage in- 
volved in expulsion, the impolicy of driving population 
out of Spain, which needed men in view of the emigra- 
tion to the Indies and the armies maintained in Flanders, 
Italy, and the African presidios, and the difference be- 
tween the population of Valencia and that of Aragon, 
in the latter of which conversion might confidently be 
expected. The king vainly made efforts to prevent this 
mission, as well as others that came from other parts of 
Spain, and when they arrived put them off with reassur- 
ing generalities.^ 

The question of the children would not stay settled. 
There were rigid churchmen who protested against 
allowing those who had been baptized to be damned by 
permitting them to be taken to infidel lands, and who re- 
fused to listen to questions of policy or to the argument 
that this was no worse than allowing them to be brought 
up as infidels in Spain. As late as April 19, 1610, the 
matter was still under debate among theologians called 
into consultation, although, on the 17th, Mexia had re- 
ceived his orders and had started from Valladolid for 



^ Lanuza, II. 429. — Bleda, Cronica, p. 1045.— Dan vila, p. 311.- 
Guadalajara, fol. 124-8. 



AEAGON AND CATALONIA, 339 

Saragossa with the edicts and all necessary papers and 
letters. The terms of the edicts were the same as in 
that of Valencia^ with two exceptions. In the one for 
Catalonia there was a concession to the theologians in a 
clause retaining all children, under seven years of age^ of 
parents going to infidel lands^ the result of which was to 
lead large numbers to make their way to France, whence 
they sailed to Barbary. The facility with which the ex- 
pulsion from Valencia had been executed and its costli- 
ness, which was reckoned at over 800,000 ducats, led, 
moreover, to an economical provision by which the exiles 
were required to pay all expenses — not only of their jour- 
ney and voyage, but of the wages of the officials deputed 
to conduct and superintend them, and also half a real a 
head as export duty on what they carried with them. 
The rich were obliged to pay for the poor, so that the 
whole matter was managed without cost to the crown. 
Taking their cue by this, the commissioners fleeced them 
unmercifully, making them pay for the water in the 
brooks and the shade of the trees on their toilsome jour- 
ney, besides extorting from them vastly more money for 
their wages than they were entitled to.^ 

The edicts were published simultaneously on May 29th 
in Saragossa and Barcelona. The fleets and shipping had 
been assembled at the Alfaques of Tortosa, the port of 
embarkation designated for those who went by sea ; 
troops had been landed, the borders guarded, the passes 
to the mountains garrisoned ; resistance was hopeless, and 
none was attempted, though there went up a cry of de- 

1 Janer, p. 280.— Bledse, Defensio Fidei, pp. 602-6, 612-18.— Wat- 
son's Philip III., Appendix B. — Guadalajara, fol. 135-41. 



340 EXPULSION. 

spair which moved even their persecutors to compassion. 
They protested that they were Christians and would die 
as such^ even though torn to pieces. Protestations were 
useless^ and they were submissively led in bands of from 
one to four thousand, without troops to keep them in 
order, although they suffered greatly from the brigand- 
age of the Old Christians. The number expelled from 
Aragon was computed at 74,000 souls and from Cata- 
lonia at 50,000. As there was no disturbance none were 
left behind, and the last embarkation was made on Sep- 
tember 18th. The submissiveness of the Moriscos was 
most fortunate for Spain, for it would have been difficult 
to overcome resistance. The troops had not been paid 
since they left Italy ; after vainly clamoring for their 
money, when landed they disbanded, leaving none but 
the officers, who hastened to replace them with raw 
levies.^ 

Large numbers— estimated at between 20,000 and 
25,000 — passed from Aragon through Navarre or over the 
mountains into France. The Spanish writers give a de- 
plorable account of their sufferings on the road and state 
that they were at first refused admittance, but were sub- 
sequently allowed to enter on payment of a ducat a head ; 
that they eagerly purchased licences to carry arms, and 
then, after spending money on the weapons, they were 
deprived of them.^ In fact, this was a very different 



^ Bleda, Cronica, pp. 1046-50. — Guadalajara, fol. 142. — Janer, p. 
90.— Lanuza, II. 429. 

2 Lanuza, II. 429. — Bleda, Cronica, p. 1049. — Cabrera, Eelaciones, 
p. 404. — Guadalajara, fol. 143. Guadalajara says (Historia Pontifical, 
V. 160) that they were charged 6 reales for a sword and 4 for licence 
to carry it, and then were deprived of what they had bought. 



PASS A GE THE UOH FRANCE, 341 

outcome than the French had expected from their in- 
trigues with the Moriscos, and this dumping upon them, 
without notice or agreement, of what was regarded as an 
undesirable population, was not likely to be looked upon 
favorably. In anticipation of it Henry lY., in Febru- 
ary, issued an ordonnance permitting those who would 
profess the Catholic faith to settle in the lands beyond 
the Garonne and Dordogne, while vessels should be pro- 
vided to convey those who desired to go to Barbary.^ 
Under this, as we shall see hereafter, nearly 17,000 
from Castile had entered France up to May 1st, soon 
after which the assassination of Henry threw everything 
into confusion. La Force tells us that, on his return to 
Beam after the assassination, he found that the Viceroy 
Aytona had sent a band of four or five thousand old 
men, women, and children to the summit of the moun- 
tains on the Bearnese frontier, where they were stopped 
by the garrisons ; the Spaniards refused to let them re- 
turn, leaving them with scanty provisions, and only 

1 Memoires de Kiclielieu, I. 88 (Paris, 1823). 

There had been considerable correspondence between the French court 
and the Porte respecting the voluntary emigration through France which 
preceded the expulsion (see p. 190). France had thrown difficulties in 
the way and had even returned to Spain some of the refugees as prisoners. 
In May, 1609, the Sultan sent a Morisco named Agi Ibraham, as a special 
envoy to Henry IV., to arrange for keeping a permanent agent at Mar- 
seilles to facilitate the passage of the emigrants, and Ambassador Salignac 
gave him a letter to the Duke of Sully recommending the project. Sub- 
sequent letters of September 19th and November 27th show the impor- 
tance attached to the subject by Salignac and that Venice was endeavor- 
ing to ingratiate itself by offering free passage by way of its territories 
(Ambassade de Salignac, II. 310, 324, 327, 434). The emulation and 
jealousies of the Christian powers at Constantinople ought to have en- 
sured better treatment of the exiles, 



342 EXPULSION. 

furnishing more at extortionate^prices.^ Then Don Pedro 
Colonna led to Jacca a troop of five or six thousand, 
mostly his own vassals, for whom he asked safe passage. 
A large number, moreover, were endeavoring to pass at 
another place, four or five leagues distant. La Force 
ordered passage refused everywhere, when Colonna 
sought an interview, informing him that Aytona had 
ordered him to request passage for them, and begging 
him to write to the queen-regent. He did so, June 25th, 
expressing apprehension that the despairing wretches 
would endeavor to force a passage, when he would be 
obliged to massacre the unarmed masses, which would 
be an unexampled barbarity. He therefore proposed 
that they be admitted in bands of a thousand, so as 
not to oppress the population in the sterile and scantily 
inhabited district through which they would pass, pay- 
ing for what they got and protected from pillage. July 
7th the queen replied, approving his suggestion and ex- 
pressing sympathy with the Moriscos, and then again on 
July 9th she ordered him to admit as few as possible, as 
it would oppress her subjects, who were to be considered 
rather than the miserable exiles. On these terms they 
were admitted, and then, on August 6th, la Force writes 
to M. de Gourgues, the commissioner whom he had 
appointed to conduct the matter, that there were six 
or seven thousand more on the frontier who cannot be 
prevented from passing, as they throw themselves like 
despairing persons across the mountains. It seems that 
when the Moriscos asked Aytona to obtain passage for 
them through France they offered to pay a crown per 
head to defray the expenses, and la Force wrote to 
Aytona and Colonna that each troop must raise a com- 



PASSAGE THROUGH FRANCE. 343 

mon purse^ sufficient to carry them through. All this 
was promised^ but he found that the Spaniards had so 
maltreated and despoiled them that they were in great 
poverty, and when they reached Nay and Orthez he re- 
turned to them, in the presence of the consuls, the money 
they had paid, after deducting a little for guards and 
other expenses.^ Thus they struggled on in diminishing 
numbers towards Marseilles and other ports where they 
hoped to find shipping. 

Even thus they were probably more fortunate than a 
body of some fourteen thousand who were refused admit- 
tance after they had reached Canfranc, the last Spanish 
town on the mountain road over the Pyrenees. They 
had paid 40,000 ducats for the permission to go to 
France, besides export duties on what they carried and 
the expenses of the commissioners in charge of them. 
They Avere forced to turn back on the long road to the 
Alfaques, and so m^ny of them sickened and died in the 
summer heat that it was feared they would bring pesti- 
lence to the ships. At the Alfaques those who embarked 
in the royal vessels were required to sail direct to Bar- 
bary, but those who, for the sake of keeping their chil 
dren, preferred to go by way of France, were free to do 
so in vessels that they might charter.^ 

Prior to the expulsion from Aragon and Catalonia, 
action had been taken covering the kingdoms of the 
crown of Castile. Towards the end of October, 1609, 
Juan de Mendoza, Marquis of San German, was sent to 
Seville to prepare for removing the Moriscos of Murcia, 

1 Memoires de la Force, II. 8-12, 288-311. 

2 Cabrera, Eelaciones, pp. 410, 413, 415, 418. 



314 EXPULSION. 

Granada and Andalusia^ to which was added the town 
of HornachoS; in the kingdom of Toledo^ the evil repu- 
tation of which we have seen — although the work was 
not to be commenced until the completion of the de- 
portation from Valencia should permit the fleet and 
troops to be sent to him. Murcia^ however^ succeeded 
in escaping for a time. Like most of the other king- 
doms of Spain^ it had taken alarm at the events in 
Valencia and had presented a remonstrance in advance, 
which had the good fortune to be listened to. The 
authorities of the city of Murcia in a memorial of Octo- 
ber 17th represented that the Valencia expulsion caused 
apprehension that it would be extended to other places. 
They had under their jurisdiction 978 Morisco house- 
holds, who were merely what were needed for the wants 
of the Old Christian population and gave no cause for 
anxiety. They were mostly natives ; they had made 
such progress in the faith that for a long time none had 
been punished by the Inquisition, and they were affronted 
when regarded as descendants of New Christians. It 
was, therefore, hoped that the king would do nothing to 
cause disquiet or to give occasion to the populace, their 
ordinary ill-wishers, to injure them. This memorial was 
followed, October 20th, by one from a Carmelite fraile, 
asking the king not to believe the magistrates. Of the 
10,500 inhabitants of the city, he said, 5500 were 
Moriscos who v/ere all traitors and should be removed 
to some place far from the sea.^ The Carmelite failed 
for the time ; the Moriscos of Murcia were Mudejares 
whose ancestors had been living there peacefully since 

1 Cabreraj Kelaciones^ pp. 386, 390. — Janer, pp. 317-19, 



GRANADA AND ANDALUSIA. 345 

the conquest in the thirteenth century ; intermarriage 
with Christians had become frequent ; many were wealthy 
and occupied positions of honor ; they were left to the last, 
and the sentence of expulsion was not executed until 1614. 
Granada and Andalusia were not so fortunate. De- 
cember 9, 1609, the edict was sent to San German in 
Seville ; the galleys and troops were brought from 
Valencia as soon as they could be spared, and on Janu- 
ary 12, 1610, the edict was published. Its form was 
somewhat different from that of Valencia. It required 
the Moriscos to depart, under pain of death and confis- 
cation, without trial or sentence ; it gave them thirty 
days in which to make their preparations ; it allowed 
them to sell all their movable proj^erty and carry with 
them the proceeds, invested in merchandise purchased 
of Spanish subjects, on payment of the regular export 
duties ; it forbade the taking of money, bullion, jewels 
or bills of exchange, except what was barely sufficient 
to defray the expenses of the journey by land and sea, 
and it confiscated their lands to the king for the service 
of God and the public.^ The simplicity of this left many 
points undetermined which were settled by subsequent 
orders. The thirty days were reduced to twenty. Cases 
of mixed marriages were treated as in Valencia, except 
that a Morisco could not take a Christian wife to an in- 
fidel land without her consent. Children were treated as 
in Catalonia, which led many to charter vessels ostensibly 
for France but in reality for Africa, while orphans of 
tender age who had no one to care for them were re- 
tained and lists were made of them. It will be seen 

^ Xueva Eecop. Lib. viii. Tit. ii. ley 25. 



346 EXPULSION. 

that in some respects the terms were harder than in 
Valencia, but no resistance was offered ; the Moriscos, 
we are told, came cheerfully and contentedly, though 
the reports of the cruelty of the Arabs led most of them 
to seek other regions, and many of them settled in 
Morocco. Among these was probably a colony from 
Seville, which Bleda tells us that he found in Agde, to 
whom the indifference felt with regard to their religion in 
France was more than neutralized by the abomination 
of hogs allowed to run at large and the constant sight 
and odor of pork and lard. They built an oven for 
themselves in order to bake and cook free from con- 
tamination, and some returned to Seville, in the hope that 
the king might change his mind. San German^s methods 
were so expeditious that by April Andalusia was reported 
clear of Moriscos, save the excepted ones, and that a few 
remained in Granada, waiting on the coast for vessels to 
convey them, and suffering greatly from want. The 
number in all was variously estimated at from 80,000 to 
100,000, including 20,000 who had voluntarily departed 
in advance. They were said to carry much wealth with 
them, which was not unlikely, as many of them, especially 
those of Seville, were rich and prosperous and had held 
offices of honor and dignity.^ 

1 Bleda, Cronica, pp. 1038-42. — Cabrera, Kelaciones, pp. 396, 402. 

The city of Cordova, January 22, 1610, proposed to petition the king 
to allow six per cent, of the Moriscos to remain, but the corregidor for- 
bade it, saying that it would be useless. Then, on the 29th, it was re- 
solved to supplicate for the retention of two Morisco saddlers who were 
necessary for the encouragement of equitation, especially as they were 
old and childless (Janer, pp. 295, 296). Apparently, in Cordova, so 
renowned of old for its leather fabrics, there were no Christians who 
could make harness. 



HORNACHOS. 347 

It was represented to Philip that there were many 
descendants of Mud^jares who had been voluntarily 
converted prior to the enforced baptism; these were 
Spaniards in dress and language^ regular and devout in 
their religious duties^ and among them were many beatas 
or others under vows of chastity. To meet such cases the 
king issued, February 9, 1610, an order to the bishops 
of Murcia, Granada, and Andalusia, reciting that after 
mature consultation with theologians he had decided that 
such Moriscos should not be expelled ; wherefore the 
bishops were to examine all such cases, without fraud 
or deceit, and report to San German those whom they 
found worthy. Many in Aragon, as we are told, sought 
to avail themselves of this, but few succeeded, and even 
these in time disappeared, some for fear of punishment 
for their enormous sins and others by the hands of the 
Inquisition.^ 

Hornachos, it is almost needless to say, was depopu- 
lated — that is, what had been left of it by the rigorous 
execution of justice by Madera. He was subsequently 
charged with its repopulation, and his execution of this 
duty was such as to lead to serious accusations against 
him. A visitador was sent to investigate, whose report 
was expected to deprive him of his office of alcalde, in 
spite of his being a favorite at court. Although he 
escaped this he was sentenced, in January, 1614, to a 
fine of 150,000 maravedis (400 ducats) and was kept 
from his regular functions by being detached on various 
commissions. In July his son went to San Lorenzo to 
represent to the king the injury thus infiicted on his 

^ Guadalajara, fol. 144. 



348 EXPULSION. 

father's reputation ; he had an audience, on leaving 
which he sank upon a bench and died, to the horror of 
all the court.^ 

The Moriscos of Castile were treated on a somewhat 
different basis. Their expulsion had been resolved upon 
by the Council of State, September 15, 1609, but it was 
not to be attempted until the result in Valencia should 
be known. So serious were the apprehensions enter- 
tained that, in October, attempts were made to organize 
the local militia by enrolling one in five of all able-bodied 
men. Philip II. had twice attempted this measure, but 
had been forced to abandon it on account of the opposi- 
tion which it excited, and now his son had the same ex- 
perience — there was no military ardor in Spain, even for 
home service. Orders were also issued to enumerate the 
Moriscos in each locality in order that the government 
might know with what it had to deal. All this, in con- 
junction with events in Valencia, aroused much agitation 
among the Moriscos, and envoys were sent from many 
quarters petitioning against expulsion and promising to 
be faithful vassals, but they received no answers. Still, 
to keep them quiet, a decree of October 11th was sent to 
all corregidores and alcaldes, reciting that the king had 
learned that, in consequence of the Valencia expulsion, 
the Old Christians were maltreating the Moriscos, where- 
fore it was ordered that all abuse by word or act should 
be severely punished. Experience of Christian faith 
caused this merely to increase the alarm, and so strong 
became the conviction of their impending doom that 

^ Guadalajara, in Historia Pontificalj V. 137-8, 160. — Cabrera, Re- 
laciones, pp. 396, 461, 560. 



CASTILE. 349 

numbers commenced to sell their lands in order to be 
prepared for whatever might happen. This interfered 
with the object of the court^ which was reckoning upon 
the prospective confiscations^ and towards the end of 
October they were forbidden to make sales^ and pur- 
chasers were warned that they could not acquire title. 
This proving insufficient^ on November 14th a procla- 
mation was issued prohibiting such transactions under 
penalty of confiscation to be incurred by both parties. 
At the same time the local officials were instructed to 
assure the Moriscos that there was no intention to dis- 
turb them ; but this did not calm their fears^ and the 
sales continued^ with the precaution of antedating the 
contracts.^ 

No time was lost when the results in Valencia removed 
appreheusions. November 3d Philip appointed the Count 
of Salazar to superintend the expulsion from Old and New 
Castile^ La Mancha and Extremadura. He was averse 
to using force^ and, judging from their efforts to dispose 
of their lands^ that the Moriscos would mostly depart vol- 
untarily^ he suggested that permission should be granted 
for expatriation^ designating the route of departure and 
the provisions respecting their property. His suggestion 
was adopted^ and a royal cedula of December 28 th per- 
mitted them to leave Spain within thirty days^ selling 
their movables and buying merchandise to carry with 
them^ but they were only allowed to take money suffi- 
cient for the journey and w^ere not to pass through the 
southern provinces or through Aragon. Assuming from 



1 Danvila, p. 292.— Cabrera, Kelaciones, pp. 386, 389, 390.— Bleda, 
Cronica, pp. 1036-7. 



350 EXPULSION, 

this that expulsion was at hand, such numbers arranged 
to go by way of Biscay to France that the term was ex- 
tended by twenty days more and^ on January 19^ 1610, 
Salazar was sent to Burgos, through which they were to 
pass, where he was to register them and issue certificates. 
Under this arrangement 16,713 persons of 3972 families 
were registered up to May 1st, when intimations that they 
would be refused admittance to France caused the stream 
to be diverted to Cartagena, where 10,642 embarked, 
nominally for Christian lands, in order to keep their 
children, though it was found that the shipmasters were 
largely bribed to convey them to Africa.^ The order 
prohibiting them to take money and jewels was naturally 
evaded as far as possible, and for attempted infractions of 
it more than thirty unfortunates were hanged at Burgos, 
but there were convenient Portuguese brokers at hand 
who for a consideration engaged to transmit the forbidden 
articles, and when this was discovered they naturally be- 
came the objects of prosecution. A safer agency was 
found in the French ambassador at Madrid, who re- 
ceived very large sums to be repaid at Marseilles and 
other places. He despatched his steward with the docu- 
ments, but the Spanish authorities were on the scent ; 
they arrested the messenger at Buitrago and brought 
him back to Madrid, whereupon the ambassador threat- 
ened that if the letters were opened no Spanish courier 
should pass through France without having his papers 
seized. An angry correspondence ensued, in which the 
ambassador was victorious ; the captured mail was sur- 



^ Danvila, p. 310. — Bleda, Cronica, p. 1051. — Cabrera, Eelaciones, 
pp. 393, 396. 



CASTILE. 351 

rendered and the steward was allowed to depart with it 
unmolested/ 

Then^ J^^ly lOth^ came an edict banishing all Moriscos 
of Granada^ Valencia and Aragon who were settled in the 
Castilian kingdoms^ followed^ August 2d^ by a similar 
provision for the kingdoms of Aragon. They were to 
embark from the southern sea-ports^ and^ at their own 
request^ they were allowed to carry with them money 
and jewels on condition of registering the amount and 
surrendering one-half to officials appointed for the pur- 
pose at the ports ; but those availing themselves of this 
privilege were debarred from taking merchandise. From 
this order were excepted those who had lived as good 
Christians^ but this was a point difficult to determine 
aright^ both here and in the case of those similarly ex- 
empted in Granada and Andalusia. The number claim- 
ing the exemption was large, and the evidence presented 
to the prelates and judges to secure certificates was mostly 
of somewhat dubious character. We can readily coq- 
ceive that the patience of all concerned was speedily 
exhausted by the multiplicity and intricacy of the 
questions which arose ; it was easier to decide them all 
adversely in advance, and an end of the business was 
made by banishing all who had thus far been exempted, 
including even the Moriscos antiguos, the descendants of 
the old Castilian Mudejares. Accordingly, March 22, 
1611, an order was sent to all the corregidores, supple- 
mented by another of May 3d, stating that it was for the 
service of God and the kingdom that the matter be per- 

1 Tapia, Historia de la Civilizacion Espanola, III. 272. — Cabrera, 
Eelaciones, p. 402. — Bofarull y Broca, Historia de Cataluiia, VII. 
292 (Barcelona, 1878).— Watson's PhiHp III., Appendix B. 



352 EXPVLSION. 

fected, wherefore all who had previously been exempted 
and all who^ after being expelled had returned^ were given 
two months in which to depart^ under irrevocable pain of 
death and confiscation. This included all antiguos who 
had lived in separate quarters or had paid the farda or 
other Morisco tax and had been listed as such, except 
wives of Old Christians, with their children, and those 
who were priests and monks or nuns. Those who had 
obtained from competent judges decisions pronouncing 
them to be good Christians were allowed the poor privi- 
lege of selling their lands and taking the proceeds to 
some Christian country, subject to the previous edicts. 
Under this last provision the local authorities promptly 
undertook to seize one-half of the proceeds of sales in the 
name of the king, but were sharply rebuked in a letter 
of May 27, 1611, telling them not to interfere, for this 
division only applied to money and jewels.^ 

With the exception of Murcia, this was intended to 
make an end of all the remaining Moriscos, of whom 
many had succeeded in hiding themselves. There was 
often nothing to distinguish them from Old Christians in 
dress or language or mode of life, and there was no lack 
of persons to harbor them, whether from compassion or 
from the profit to be derived from their services. To 
ferret them out commissioners were sent to the different 
provinces with instructions that no privileges or antiquity 
should avail them, while the courts were expressly pro- 
hibited from interference, although, as some restraint on 
the opportunity for arbitrary injustice and extortion thus 
afforded, it was added that those who had the reputation 

^ Janer, pp. 344, 345, 350. — Bleda, Cronica, pp. 1051-2 ; Defensio 
Fidei, pp. 524-5, 607-12. — Cabrera, Eelaciones, p. 415. 



SEARCH FOR REMNANTS. 353 

of being Old Christians could appeal to the king. Under 
this the cases were multitudinous and prolonged ; the 
commissioners were finally discarded and the business 
was restored to the local courts with appeal to the Coun- 
cil of Justice^ where these questions took long to decide^ 
involving much undeserved hardship. The expulsions 
occasioned by these measures were reckoned at about six 
thousand^ exclusive of the young children^ who were re- 
tained and given to Old Christians to bring up. An 
incident was the complaint of the local authorities that 
they were burdened with maintaining in prison many 
who had nothing wherewith to pay their way to the sea- 
ports, and a royal letter of September 19, 1612, directed 
that they should be passed from one district to another, 
which should lodge and feed them, to the point of em- 
barkation — the king, who was deriving large sums from 
the confiscations and exactions imposed on those whom 
he was driving from their homes, refused even to defray 
the cost of removing those unable to pay for themselves.^ 
The difficulty of hunting up those who were hidden 
was complicated by the numbers of exiles who persisted 
in returning in spite of an edict of September 29, 1612, 
which consigned them all to the galleys. Between both 
classes the work seemed endless. January 16, 1613, 
orders were sent to the local magistrates to be active 
in cleansing the land of infidels, and this was followed, 
April 20th, by a cedula reciting that there were still 
many concealed Moriscos and many returned exiles ; 
licences exempting from expulsion had been fraudulently 
issued, and the Council of Justice could not permit its 

1 Cabrera, Kelaciones, pp. 434, 437, 440. — Bleda, Cronica, pp. 1044, 
1057-8.— Janer, pp. 351, 355, 356.— Danvila, pp. 212, 213. 

23 



364 EXPULSION. 

regular business to be set aside by the multitude of suits 
and appeals brought before it. The whole affair was, 
therefore, placed exclusively in the hands of the Count 
of Salazar, with full authority, in conjunction with his 
assessor, the Licentiate Avellaneda Manrique, to hear and 
decide all cases summarily ; the ordinary courts were 
divested of jurisdiction and were directed to refer every- 
thing to him. In this arduous work he labored long and 
strenuously, aided by Manrique, who devoted himself to 
it at his own expense and without pay. At Almagro 
Salazar found more than eight hundred returned exiles, 
of whom he despatched some to the galleys, others to the 
quicksilver mines of Almaden, and the rest he sent abroad 
at the expense of the magistrates who had been remiss in 
detecting and punishing them ; but his greatest trouble, 
we are told, lay in determining the suits of those who 
claimed that they were not comprised in the edicts. 
Some light is thrown on the situation by an edict which 
he issued in the name of the king, October 26, 1613, 
ordering all Moriscos to leave the kingdom within fifteen 
days ; the local officials were warned that any neglect in 
looking after returned exiles would be reported to the 
king ; all persons receiving or harboring Moriscos were 
threatened with confiscation, and as this included fiefs, 
castles, vassals and royal grants, it shows that nobles 
were sheltering them ; and finally a reward of ten 
ducats, payable from the property of those detected, 
was offered for information leading to the capture of a 
Morisco.^ 

In all these measures Christian property rights had 

^ Janer, pp. 357, 360.— -Cabrera, Eelaciones, p. 522. — Bleda, 
Cronica, pp. 1058, 1060. 



MORIS CO SLAVES. 355 

been respected by excepting slaves^ of whom many had 
been made in the risings of Valencia. The Inquisition 
looked after these^ and that it was active in the work 
may be inferred from the records of the little tribunal 
of Mallorca. For many years it had only had an occa- 
sional Morisco case; but suddenly^ in 1613^ we find, in 
an auto de fe of August 18th, twenty-six Moriscos recon- 
ciled, of whom all but one were slaves.^ A further echo 
of this appears, in 1615, in a complaint of the Inquisition 
that Moors, captured as corsairs or shipwrecked on the 
coast, lived and dressed as such, although they were 
really Moriscos duly baptized and subsequently expelled, 
and that when the tribunals arrested and proceeded to 
try them their masters interfered. Thereupon Philip 
addressed, February 12, 1615, a cedula to the viceroys 
and governors of all the maritime provinces, ordering 
them to see that no impediment was placed on the in- 
quisitorial jurisdiction, and that when such Morisco 
slaves were released by the Inquisition they should be 
subjected to the penalties provided for returned exiles 
(the galleys) unless, indeed, the Inquisition had sentenced 
them to something severer.^ 

At last the time came for the Moriscos of Murcia and 
the Val de Ricote to share the fate of their brethren. 

^ Archivo de Simancas, Inqiiisicion, Libro 595. After this there 
are none until 1626, when there is one described as " de los expulsos 
de Valencia." This record is only of those relaxed or reconciled, and 
there may have been many minor cases. 

^ Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 927, fol. 187. — A subse- 
(|uent instruction of the Suprema, Oct. 31, 1629, forbids the tribunals 
to prosecute exiles captured at sea and brought back as slaves — also 
those in the royal galleys, unless they gave occasion for scandal. — MSS. 
of Eoyal Library of Copenhagen, 318b. p. 224. 



356 EXPULSION. 

They had made interest enough to procure for them- 
selves the suspension of the edict of December 9, 1609, 
and the proclamation of San German, January 12, 1610, 
but the success of the measure elsewhere and doubts as to 
the sincerity of their faith led to another edict of October 
8, 1611, ordering all the Mudejares who lived in separate 
quarters to be deported from Cartagena, which was duly 
published in Murcia, November 10th, by Don Luis 
Fajardo, captain-general of the Atlantic fleet. Again 
they had influence enough to secure a reprieve, bat after 
the work was completed elsewhere, the Duke of Lerma 
and the royal confessor, Fray Aliaga, sent investigators 
to Ricote and other places who, of course, reported that 
the Moriscos held relations with the infidels abroad and 
were Christians only in name. Armed with this, Lerma 
insisted, the king yielded, and Salazar was ordered, by 
a cedula of October 19, 1613, to enforce the expulsion 
under the preceding edicts. The Murcians must already 
have enjoyed the reputation for violence which they still 
retain, as shown in the refran '^ el cielo y suelo es bueno, 
el entresuelo malo ^^ — the heaven and the earth are good 
and all between is bad— for somewhat elaborate prepara- 
tions were made to crush resistance or to protect the 
Moriscos. Philibert of Savoy, the general of the sea, 
was ordered to take his galleys, with the tercio of Lom- 
bardy on board, to Cartagena and place them at Salazar^s 
disposition. Land forces from various quarters were also 
held in readiness, the frontiers were guarded, and Phili- 
bert was instructed to collect all the vessels necessary to 
carry away the exiles, who were to defray all expenses. 
Salazar was hurried from Madrid, November 20th, in 
a heavy snowstorm, with directions to lose no time ; he 



MUBOIA. 357 

reached Hellin, on the border, on the 29th, and from 
there despatched commissioners to publish the proclama- 
tion everywhere and to execute it. It embodied the 
general provisions of the previous edicts and allowed 
ten days for departure. The Moriscos hoped that with 
demonstrations of Christianity they could again procure 
its suspension ; they organized processions with disci- 
plines, in which the maidens walked barefooted with 
hair unbound and heads covered with ashes, like the 
Ninevites, and they made no preparations for departure. 
To undeceive them Salazar established himself at Cieza, 
at the entrance of the Val de Eicote, ordered a disarm- 
ament, and on December 18th issued a proclamation 
stating that, as they asked for time on the plea of not 
having disposed of their lands, they might empower 
agents to make sales in their absence. This convinced 
them that there was no alternative, and they made no 
resistance, but allowed themselves to be led to the port 
of embarkation, although many succeeded in escaping. 
Then, on January 4, 1614, there was another proclama- 
tion remitting the penalties on those who had been absent 
for just cause, and permitting them to appoint agents to 
sell their property, although the ten days had expired. 
About fifteen thousand Avere thus deported, but many 
old people and invalids, who could not undertake the 
journey without risk of life, were allowed to remain. 
Many women married Old Christians in order to obtain 
the exemption, and many husbands and wives who 
were of honorable birth entered religion to the great 
enrichment of the monasteries, for which the bishops 
and the superiors of the Orders cheerfully granted 
licence. The children were retained, but the parents 



358 EXPULSION. 

were allowed, when they could, to place them with Old 
Christians, who obligated themselves to bring them up, 
to pay them for their services, to keep them in evidence, 
and not to sell them. Early in February Salazar re- 
turned to Madrid with his work accomplished, though 
there were still some remnants to be gathered. In 1615 
he reported that he had sent Manrique to Murcia to com- 
plete the expulsion, and that he had consulted with the 
vice-chancellor of Aragon as to what was necessary to 
drive out the Moriscos of Tarragona ; there was still 
question as to those of Mallorca, where there were seventy 
households, and he knew that there were Moriscos in 
Mallorca, Menorca, the Canaries and Sardinia.^ 

Although, as late as 1623, there were still investiga- 
tions on foot as to Moriscos scattered and hidden in 
Spain, the pious work of purifying the land of infidelity 
was considered to be accomplished by the expulsion from 
Murcia. It had been undertaken as a matter of state 
policy and necessity, but the untiring zeal shown in 
eradicating the last vestiges indicates how large a part 
of the impelling motive was the duty recognized as 
owing to God, and the consummation was fitly cele- 
brated. In 1614 the Archbishop of Granada suggested 
that such a triumph of the faith should be commemorated 
by a solemn feast, to which Philip promptly assented and 
wrote, March 24th, to all the prelates of the realm to 
determine whether it should be held on the day when 
the final resolution was adopted or on that on which its 
execution was commenced.^ 

^ Bleda, Cronica, pp. 1058-60. — Janer, pp. 361-66. — Cabrera, Eela- 
ciones, pp. 631, 546. — Danvila, pp. 314, 317. 
^ Janer, p. 366. 



NUMBER OF EXILES. 359 

The estimates of the number of exiles vary greatly^ 
and the details given by contemporary writers are too 
fragmentary to allow of an accurate summing up. 
Guadalajara alludes in passing to a total of 600,000^ but 
he subsequently reduces this to 400^000 exiles^ besides 
voluntary emigrants. Navarrete speaks of 2,000^000 
Jews and 3^000^000 Moriscos having been at various 
times expelled from Spain^ and he is copied by Gil Gon- 
zalez Davila^ the official historiographer of Philip III. 
and IV. Von der Hammer reduces the number to 
310^000^ exclusive of those sent to the galleys^ w^hile 
Alfonso Sanchez raises it to 900^000. In modern times 
Llorente assumes a total of a million, while Janer esti- 
mates the whole Morisco population at the same figure, 
of whom 100,000 perished or were enslaved, leaving 
900,000 exiles. Vicente de la Fuente, on the other 
hand^ reduces the number to 120,000 souls, while Dan- 
vila y Collado, after a careful comparison of all official 
statistics, reaches an estimate of something less than 
500,000 souls, which is probably not far from correct.^ 
No computation, that I am aware of, has been attempted 
of the number of children taken from their parents and 

^ Guadalajara, fol. 163 ; Historia Pontifical, V. 161. — Navarrete, 
Conservacion de Monarquias, p. 50 (Madrid, 1626). — Davila, Yida y 
Hechos del Eey Felipe III. p. 151 (Madrid, 1771). — Yon der Hammer 
J Leon, Felipe el Prudent e, fol. 33 (Madrid, 1632).— Alfonsi Sanctii de 
Eebus Hispan. Anacephaleosis, p. 390 (Compluti, 1634). — Llorente, 
Hist. Critique de 1' Inquisition, L 455 (Paris, 1818). — Janer, p. 143. — 
Y. de la Fuente, Hist, eclesiastlca de Espaiia, III. 229 (Barcelona, 
1855).— Danvila, pp. 337-40. 

The computation of 3,000,000 Moriscos and 2,000,000 Jews origi- 
nated with Mcente Gonzalez Alvarez, in a little book on the expulsion 
from Avila. In this he computes six successive expulsions of both 
races. — Guadalajara in Historia Pontifical, Y. 161. 



360 EXPULSION. 

retained^ nor is there material to make one^ but it must 
have been considerable. In the then existing population 
of Spain^ reckoned at over 8^000^000^ the prolonged alarm 
inspired by the comparatively insignificant number of 
MoriscoS; disarmed and unorganized^ indicates the pro- 
found conviction entertained by Spanish statesmen of the 
internal weakness of the monarchy. 

When we compare the inconsiderable number of the 
exiles with the original large Moorish population of the 
lands recovered during the reconquest we can realize how 
great a proportion of the Mudejares mast have become 
Christians and have been merged indistinguishably with 
their conquerors. Medieval toleration had won them 
over^ and its continuance would in time have completed 
the process. Not only would an infinite sum of human 
misery have been averted^ but Spain would^ to some ex- 
tent, have escaped the impoverishment and debility which 
served as so cruel an expiation. 

The fate of the exiles was deplorable. Torn from 
their homes without time to prepare for the new and 
strange life before them, and stripped of most of their 
property, at the best the suffering was terrible, but man^s 
inhumanity multiplied it tenfold. In whatever direction 
they turned they were exposed to spoliation or worse. 
While the voyage to Africa, in the royal ships, was 
doubtless safe enough, the masters of the private vessels 
which they chartered had no scruples in robbing and 
murdering them. Many who sailed were never accounted 
for as arriving ; others were merely deprived of their 
valuables and forced to sign the letters which enabled 
the masters to claim the passage-money deposited. It 



FATE OF THE EXILES. 361 

was not that the Spanish authorities were indifferent. 
Fonseca relates that he witnessed in Barcelona^ Decem- 
ber 12, 1609^ the execution of the captain and crew of a 
barque which had started from Valencia for Oran with 
seventy Moriscos. Falling in with a Neapolitan felucca^ 
the united crews conspired to kill the passengers and 
divided the spoils^ amounting to 3000 ducats. Under 
promise of pardon a dissatisfied sailor revealed the crime 
in Barcelona^ when not only were the Spaniards duly 
punished^ but the Viceroy of Catalonia wrote to the 
Viceroy of Naples with details which enabled him to 
seize and execute the crew of the felucca.^ 

Those who escaped or postponed these dangers by 
passing overland to France were objects of pillage rather 
than of murder. We have seen la Forceps account of 
how he treated the unexpected and unwelcome multi- 
tudes suddenly thrust across the border ; he no doubt 
did what he could to alleviate the embarrassing situa- 
tion^ but the exiles were hardly used. Some of them 
reached Constantinople and spread reports of their treat- 
ment^ doubtless exaggerated^ which Ambassador Salignac 
felt were well calculated to reverse the favorable impres- 
sions which he had so sedulously cultivated. August 24^ 
1610, he wrote to the queen-regent, in terms more forcible 
than courtly, that the outrages and pillage to which these 
poor creatures had been exposed were so cruel and hor- 
rible a brigandage that there could be no excuse for 
leaving them unpunished, and this was followed, Octo- 
ber 5th, by a letter from Ahmed I. himself, in which he 
alluded to having sent Agi Ibrahim in 1609 ; he now 

1 Fonseca, pp. 222-6. 



362 EXPULSION, 

sends him again to ask the royal protection for the exiles^ 
because the governors and officials had stripped them of 
their property and had put some of them to death^ while 
others were scandalously ill-treated by the shipmasters, 
who robbed them and landed them on desert islands, 
carrying off to slavery their wives and children. That 
this, however, was not universal is shown by a letter, 
October 30th, from M. du Carla (the brother of Salignac, 
who had meanwhile died), announcing the arrival of a 
vessel from Marseilles with a number of Moriscos who 
speak in the highest terms of their treatment.^ Cardinal 
Richelieu tells us that some of the officials, commissioned 
to superintend the passage of the exiles, were guilty of 
much thievery, and even permitted murders, but they 
were punished so severely that the outrages ceased.^ 
Perhaps the most accurate statement is to be found in a 
letter of July 25, 1511, from one of the refugees to a 
friend in Spain, relating how about a thousand of them, 
mostly from Extremadura, reached Marseilles, where they 
were welcomed with promises of good treatment, but this 
suddenly changed when the news came of the assassina- 
tion of Henry IV., which was attributed to the King 
of Spain. Victims were wanted, aud the Moriscos were 
accused of being Spanish spies ; they were in much per- 
sonal danger for awhile and were stripped of most of 
their money by a judicial sentence. To remedy this the 
queen sent a judge, but he was so greedy that when one 
of the Moriscos bribed him with a hundred ducats he 
returned one of light weight and demanded to have it 



^ Ambassade de Salignac, pp. 389, 434. 
^ Eichelieu, Memoires, I. 89 (Paris, 1823 



FATE OF THE EXILES, 363 

replaced. In hopes of better fortune elsewhere they 
went to Leghorn^ but met the same treatment. There 
was nothing for them to do in Italy but to work in the 
fields^ for which they were unfit, being all merchants or 
officials, so they finally sailed for Algiers. Apparently the 
writer and his friends were Christians, for he emphasizes 
the fact that there they are not obliged to renounce their 
faith.^ The Moslem of Tetuan were not so tolerant, and 
it adds a new horror to the whole unhappy business to 
learn that there the Christian Moriscos who were firm 
in their religion were lapidated or put to death in other 
ways for refusing to enter the mosques.^ The Church 
which had impelled them to martyrdom, however, took 
no steps to canonize these obscure victims. 

In Barbary, as a rule, the sufferings of the exiles were 
terrible. They were landed at Oran, whence they had 
to make their way to the Moorish states ; they had the 
reputation of bringing money with them, and were plun- 
dered and slain and their women were taken from them 
without mercy, after the first embarkation had been 
safely convoyed. Before the year 1609 was out the 
Count of Aguilar, Captain-general of Oran, wrote that 
through fear of the Arabs many remained there and 
were starving. Twenty of their principal men had come 
to him and declared themselves to be Christians ; that 
they had not known what to believe until they had seen 
the abominations of the Moors, and now they desired to 
remain and die as Christians. Not knowing what to do, 

1 Janer, p. 350. 

^ Cabrera, Eelaciones, p. 404. Fray Bleda (Cronica, p. 1042) natu- 
rally discredits the stateraent of these martyrdoms, as it militates 
against his theory that all the Moriscos were apostates. 



364 EXPULSION. 

the count threw them in prison and applied for instruc- 
tions. We may doubt the story^ contained in a report of 
the Inquisition of Valencia, that the crew of a transport; 
wrecked on the African coast, in making their way to 
Oran, counted nine thousand corpses of those who had 
been slain, but there is little reason to suspect the state- 
ment of the Comendador de N. Senora de las Mercedes 
of Oran, that what between disease and the atrocities 
of the Arabs two-thirds of those deported had perished. 
In fact, the general estimate was that the proportion was 
at least three-quarters.^ 

This explains the number who returned to Spain in 
spite of the savage edicts which consigned them to the 
galleys. Many came, professing a wish to be Christians 
and to serve as slaves, and they found persons to accept 
them as such. The question was raised whether this was 
permissible under the edicts, and a number of theologians 
signed an argument, addressed to the Viceroy of Valen- 
cia, to prove that, as the Church receives and baptizes 
Moors desiring to become Christians, it could not reject 
those already baptized who returned to its bosom, even 
although moved by servile attrition, which is defined as 
suiBcing by the Council of Trent. Fray Bleda took the 
alarm, and. May 7, 1610, addressed the king on the sub- 
ject, warning him of the fate of Saul for sparing the 
Amalekites. To tliis Philip replied. May 23d, thank- 
ing him and telling him that orders had been issued to 
the viceroy that not a single Morisco should be left in 
the kingdom. The officials made efforts to accomplish 

^ Cabrera, Eelaciones, pp. 391, 396. — Archive de Simancas, Inqn de 
Valencia, Legajo 205, fol. 2.— Juan Kipol, Dialogo de Consuelo, fol. 
20.— Bleda, Cronica, p, 1021. 



RETURNING AS SLAVES. 365 

this^ but kindness and covetousness combined to render 
it impossible. Six months later Archbishop Ribera found 
that in his see there were at least two thousand^ and twice 
that number in all Yalencia. Thinking that there were 
probably as many more concealed he issued^ November 
13th^ a mandement commanding^ under pain of major 
excommunication latce sententice, that all should be re- 
ported, but his efforts were fruitless. The royal orders 
were frequently repeated, but finding them useless the 
Royal Council at length grew tired of issuing them, and 
Fray Bleda, writing in 1618, deplores the fact that he 
will die without seeing his land purified of this evil seed. 
Apparently it never was wholly purified. We are told 
that in Valencia, la Mancha and Granada there are still 
communities which in dress, customs and tendencies may 
be regarded as Moriscos, having scarce any notions of 
Christianity.^ 

Thus, nine centuries after the fatal day of Jerez de la 
Frontera, the descendants of the conquerors were driven 
from the land which the labors of their ancestors had 
enriched and adorned. History records many vicissi- 
tudes, but few so complete as this. When Cardinal 
Richelieu characterized the act as the boldest and most 
barbarous recorded in human annals,^ he did not foresee 
that in his own land, before the century was out, the 
Most Christian King would, in a somewhat different 
fashion, emulate the barbarity without the excuse of 
state necessity. 

^ Bleda, Cronica, pp. 1021-3. — Vicente de la Fuente, Historia eclesi- 
astica, III. 228. 
* M^moires de Kichelieu, I. 86. 



CHAPTER XI. 

RESULTS. 

The ecclesiastics^ who had labored so strenuously to 
bring about the catastrophe^ were loud in their pseans of 
joy at the accomplishment of their purpose. Fray Bleda 
breaks forth in a rhapsody in which he assures the king 
that his treasury will be filled and his debts be paid, the 
land will be thoroughly tilled and its waste places will 
flourish and it will grow rich ; there will be a golden age 
for Spain ; unified in religion and freed from its domestic 
enemies, it will prosper as never before and become a 
terror to all enemies of the Christian name ; it is the most 
glorious event for Spain since the resurrection of Christ 
and its conversion from paganism. Guadalajara is equally 
enthusiastic ; the great conjunction of the stars in Decem- 
ber, 1603, the Sibylline and other prophecies, Spanish 
and Arabic, which he recounts, prove that Spain, after 
this great achievement, will recover Jerusalem and break 
utterly the Moslem power. The Moriscos, he tells us, 
were accustomed to say that the prosperity of Spain 
ceased when they were forced to baptism ; but this only 
shows that the land was cursed with sterility for tolerat- 
ing their apostasy, and since the expulsion there has been 
abundance, the price of wheat has fallen, trade is more 
freely conducted, the coasts are free from corsairs, men 
travel without fear and voyage without danger, the cur- 
rency is free from false coinage, the land is delivered 



CONTEMPORARY OPINION. 367 

from the fear of treason and rebellion^ murders are less 
frequent, there is no lack of soldiers, all live in the one 
Catholic, Apostolic and Roman faith, there is peace 
throughout the land and the sleeper is not afraid/ 

If such was the temper of the fanatic enthusiasts who 
had urged the measure, there were others who approved 
of it, but who felt that its advantages were dearly bought, 
and that the consolations of philosophy were required to 
reconcile the people to their losses. These are repre- 
sented in a little tract which makes no endeavor to dis- 
prove the material damage endured, but teaches the 
Christian stoicism that earthly possessions are vain, that 
poverty is a blessing, that the only true riches are virtue 
and the disdain of mundane things. It is well that there 
shall be less rumbling of carriages and that the nobles 
who used to ride shall be forced to walk. It is well that 
when we are too prosperous we should be humiliated. 
Our position was sui^h that but for this there is no saying 
to what point our pride and haughtiness would have 
reached ; we would have been ruined by our own abun- 
dance. We had employed our wealth for uses other than 
those for which it was given to us, and it is just that we 
should lose it. The poor, moreover, rejoice at seeing 
that their labor has become necessary to the rich. Against 
this comes the argument that Spain has hitherto been 
reputed sterile on account of its deficient population, to 
which the answer is that if we are few we shall be united, 
and union is the source of strength.^ 

1 Bled^ Defensio Fidei, pp. 490, 513, 516, 561.— Guadalajara, fol. 
157, 160-3. 

' Juan Eipol, Dialogo de Coiisuelo por la Expulsion de los Moriscos, 
fol. 9, 13, 17 (Pamplona, 1613). 



368 RESULTS. 

Fray Bleda sought to administer more material con- 
solation when^ writing in 1618, he said that the villages 
which these infernal demons inhabited were deserted but 
for a very short time^ especially where the lords attended 
to repopulating them^ as might be seen in the marquisate 
of Elche^ the county of Elda^ the baronies of the Duke 
of Infantado; the marquisate of Lombay^ and most other 
places^ so that as regards population and the harvests of 
wheat and other important crops the absence of the Moris- 
cos is imperceptible. It will be seen^ he asserts, that the 
first-fruits and tithes of the Church will be little less, and 
in a short time will be much more^ than with the Moors. 
Thus for only eight or nine years will their absence have 
been felt in the incomes and in the general prosperity of 
the kingdom, although some lords of sterile lands where 
there is no irrigation will have to wait longer to bring 
them up to the point in which the Moriscos kept them, 
but then they will need fewer Christians, for the Moris- 
cos were miserable laborers. It is very certain that as 
regards important products, such as wheat, the Moriscos 
will not be missed, and if the Christians who have re- 
placed them had their implements and cattle there would 
be a third more wheat gathered than in their time, and 
in proof of this may be cited the baronies of the Duke of 
Infantado, in which this year an infinite crop of wheat 
has been gathered.^ 

As regards the economical effects of the measure, vague 
generalities such as these are readily offset. A modern 
writer, who seeks to minimize its injurious influence, ad- 
mits that it reduced greatly the revenues of the churches 

1 Bleda, Cronica, pp. 1030-1. 



DIMINISHED REVENUES. 369 

and the nobles ; that in the dioceses of Valencia^ Saragossa 
and Tarazona there was scarce a benefice of which the in- 
come was not cut down one-half^ and they never returned 
to their former vakie/ A concrete example of the effect 
on the nobles is furnished by the statistics of the duke- 
dom of Gandia^ which embraced over 60,000 Morisco 
vassals in the lordships of Gandia, Oliva, Fuentedeu and 
Murla, yielding a revenue of 53,1 53 libras, 8 sueldos. 
In 1610 this fell to 15,349 libras, 5 sueldos, rising in 
1611 to 17,179 libras, 10 sueldos, 3 dineros, and in 1611 
to 24,353 libras, 12 sueldos, 2 dineros. In ten villages 
alone, in the vicinity of Gandia, 417 houses were vacant, 
five hamlets were demolished and four were uninhabited.^ 
It is highly significant of the embarrassments brought 
upon the duke that, in 1518, we find the Suprema ordering 
the Inquisition of Valencia to send authentic copies of the 
censos due by him to it and to report whether the agree- 
ment reached in the suit with him had been carried out, 
and in what condition were his estates and vassals since 
the Moriscos departed.^ Thus, in spite of the grant to 
the nobles of the lands of their vassals, they were impov- 
erished. They were required to repopulate the abandoned 
districts, which was not easy in a land already suffering 
from inadequate population. When they sought to at- 

^ Vicente de la Fuente, Historia eclesiastica de Espana, III. 230. 

In a memorial presented to Urban VIII. by Philip IV. in 1634, it is 
stated that in some provinces of Spain, owing to depopulation and dimi- 
nution of production, the revenues of many prebends and benefices are 
less than a third of what they formerly were. — Bodleian Library, Arch. 
Seld. A. Subt. 17. 

2 Danvila, p. 302. 

^ Archivo Hist. Nacional, Inqii de Valencia, Legajo 6, No. 2, fol. 
144. 

24 



370 RESULTS, 

tract immigrants from Majorca the authorities there 
interfered, to prevent the loss of inhabitants ; they en- 
deavored to get a larger share of the fruits in virtue of 
the incorporation of the dGminmm utile with the directum 
of the lands held by the Moriscos, but in view of the 
heavy burdens on the lands they were obliged to be con- 
tent with a portion ranging from a sixth to a ninth of 
the product in place of the third or the half which the 
Moriscos had been accustomed to pay. On these terms 
three places were repopulated before the year 1609 was 
out, fifteen more in 1610, thirty in 1611, and so the 
process went on. We hear of 8000 immigrants from the 
Pyrenees and 7000 from Catalonia, but these were a very 
partial substitute for the 100,000 or 150,000 exiles from 
Valencia, and if the house of Osuna, as is alleged, in com- 
paratively a few years brought its rentals up to the old 
standard there must have been exceptionally capable man- 
agement.^ 

The process of repopulation was greatly retarded by 
the censos or ground-rents with which most of the Morisco 
holdings were charged. The lords took the lands subject 
to these liens, and were unable to pay the interest or rent, 
and newcomers were unwilling to assume them. The 
rate ranged from six and a half to ten per cent., although 
the customary charge in Spain was only five ; these censos 
were the chief support of all who had capital to invest— 
nobles, widows, convents, parish churches, cathedral and 
collegiate chapters, etc. — so that the confusion was inextri- 
cable and the suffering universal, especially in Valencia. 

^ Cabrera, Eelaciones, p. 392. — Ximenez, Vida de Eibera, p. 435. — 
Danvila, pp. 334-6. — Boix, Historia de la Ciudad j Keino de Valen- 
cia. 11. 50-1 (Valencia, 1845). 



LOSS ON CENSOS 371 

Francisco Geronimo Ramo^ a gentleman of Murviedro^ 
thus lost 20^000 ducats of censos in Almunia^ a property 
of his ancestors since the time of the conquest^ and Ber- 
nardino Zanoquera^ Maestre Racional of Valencia^ lost 
6000 ducats in Alzira. To straighten matters out Sal- 
vador Fontanet, regent of the royal court of Valencia, 
was commissioned to investigate the whole subject, and, 
on the basis of his report, a pragmatica of April 2d, 
and a cedula of June 9, 1614, laid down general prin- 
ciples and gave full instructions what to do in each case. 
From this it would appear that a horizontal reduction of 
interest on the censos was made to five per cent., while 
allusions to the pro-rating of creditors and allowing of 
executions indicate how complete was the financial dis- 
turbance and how wide-spread were the losses. It was 
not only the Morisco villages which were depopulated, 
but many Christian communities were ruined in conse- 
quence of the intimate relations existing between them. 
The tablet de los depositos of Valencia — presumably a 
bank of deposit — was bankrupted and had to be assisted 
by the imposition of an impost to repair its losses. The 
tabla of Barcelona, which was regarded as exceptionally 
strong, was likewise bankrupted, and only the one of 
Saragossa managed to retain its credit. The nobles who, 
in Fontanet^s report, were shown to have suffered excep- 
tionally were assisted by annual payments from the king, 
^^para alimentos,^^ as though they were in danger of 
starving. Thus, to the Count of Castellar was awarded 
the sum of 2000 ducats a year, to Don Juan Eotla 400, 
to Doiia Beatriz de Borja 600, to the Marquis of Quira 
600, to the Count del Real 2000, to the Duke of Gandia 
8000, and so forth. The barony of Cortes, belonging to 



372 RESULTS. 

Don Juan Pallas^ had suffered especially^ troops having 
been quartered there who razed the houses^ cut down the 
trees and destroyed everything, in compensation for 
which he was granted 4000 ducats worth of royal lands 
and a pension for life of three hundred libras.^ 

These were liberal grants^ in view of the fact that the 
royal treasury was an especial sufferer and that it was 
habitually in a state of penury. In 1611 Philip, in ap- 
pealing to the cortes for relief to the necessities of the 
state and enumerating the reasons for his poverty, in- 
cluded the expulsion of the Moriscos, in which he had 
postponed the interest of the treasury to the service of 
God and the state.^ This was not entirely candid, for 
the king enjoyed a compensating source of profit denied 
to the nobles and churches. In Aragon and Valencia he 
suffered with them, and in the latter kingdom he was the 
largest landholder, for at the conquest all lands not 
granted to vassals were reserved to the crown. In the 
kingdoms of the crown of Castile, however, as we have 
seen, he escheated the lands of the exiles or made them 
surrender one-half of the wealth they carried with them. 
What sums were derived from this we have no means of 
knowing, but they were undoubtedly large, and, in fact, 
among the arguments urged in advance for expulsion a 
prominent place was given to the permanent relief to the 
state that the confiscations would bring, enabling it to 
clear off its enormous and increasing indebtedness. As 
early as October, 1610, the Council of Finance reported 
that the property of the Moriscos of Ocana and Madrid 

1 Boix, op. cit. II. 344.— Bleda, Cronica, pp. 1032, 1033.— Dan vila. 
pp. 333-9. — Cabrera, Eelaciones, p. 546. 
^ Cabrera, Eelaciones, p. 458. 



ESCHEATS TO THE KING. 373 

had mostly been sold and that seventy-five millions of 
maravedis (200,000 ducats) had been already paid in/ 
This indicates total receipts of considerable magnitude, 
but they afforded no relief to the treasury, for greedy 
favorites were always at hand to profit by the reckless 
improvidence of Philip, as the Flemings had done in the 
early years of Charles V. In letters of Sir Francis Cot- 
tington, the British ambassador, to Lord Salisbury, March 
4th and May 16, 1610, he states that commissioners had 
been sent to the provinces to sell the houses and farms of 
the exiles, but that the king did not propose to utilize 
the proceeds for the service of the state, for he was divid- 
ing them in advance among his favorites with scandalous 
prodigality— 250,000 ducats to Lerma, 100,000 to the 
Duke of Uceda, Lerma's son, 100,000 to the count of 
Lemos, and 50,000 to the Countess of Lemos, Lerma^s 
daughter.^ 

Better use was made of at least a portion of the escheats 
in Aragon and Valencia. A statement of January 7, 
1613, shows that those of Aragon amounted to 471,533 
libras, 5 sueldos, out of which 49,188 were bestowed on 
the Inquisition, 84,949 to new inhabitants in the form of 
ground-rents on which they were to pay interest, and a 
considerable sum was devoted to repopulating the barrio 
de San Juan in the town of Borja, and the village of 
Torroles, which were deserted.^ In 1614 Adrian Bavarte 
was sent to Valencia with full powers to settle all mat- 
ters connected with the large amount of property left by 
the Moriscos in the royal cities and towns, to sell it, to 
verify and pay all claims on it of every kind, to collect 

^ Janer, p. 343. ^ Watson's Philip III., Appendix B. 

3 Danvila, p. 332. 



374 RESULTS. 

all debts due by Christians to Moriscos which enured to 
the fisc^ to restore the population of Segorbe^ Navajas^ 
Corvera and the suburbs of Jativa^ together with many 
other matters arising from the expulsion. In all this he 
had plenary authority^ and the courts were deprived of 
jurisdiction in the premises. The task occupied him for 
two years and a half^ during which he settled an infinity 
of suits and sold the royal properties at prices consider- 
ably larger than their valuation^ so that the king was 
able to pay all debts and claims and had a surplus for 
distribution to the barons^ monasteries and other sufferers 
— it was doubtless from this source that were met the 
awards made under the report of Fontanet. It is said 
that Bayarte satisfied every one and that no appeals were 
made from his decisions^ and^ in September, 1616, the 
king ordered that his settlements should be final, that 
no court should take cognizance of any suit brought to 
disturb them, under penalty of forfeiture for the pleader 
and exemplary punishment of the judge entertaining such 
action.^ It is easy to imagine the multitude and com- 
plexity of the cases arising from this sudden dislocation 
of business when the active trading element of the com- 
munity was ordered out of the kingdom on a three days^ 
notice. 

How long, indeed, it took to settle all the questions 
arising from this arbitrary act, and the still more arbi- 
trary methods used in its enforcement, may be seen from 
the fragment of a suit, brought about 1640, by the Licen- 
tiate Herrador, a priest, to recover some property which 
had been sold at the time of the expulsion by Francisco 

1 Bleda, Cronica, pp. 1033-6. 



DELAY OF SETTLEMENTS. 375 

de Santander^ the juez de comission, as an escheat to the 
king. The argument for the plaintiff sets forth that he 
is descended from the noble Moors of the five cities of 
the Campo de Calatrava^ who voluntarily embraced Chris- 
tianity and who were granted by the king all the rights 
and privileges of Old Christians. His father^ Juan Her- 
rador^ had been alcalde and regidor ; the family had 
appealed against being included in the edict of expul- 
sion^ but the case had been delayed in consequence of 
their documents being in the hands of a certain Doiia 
Leonora Manrique^ wdio profited by their misfortune and 
received the price of the property sold. They made good 
their claims of exemption finally^ but it was not until 
1627 that they obtained a reversal of judgment in the 
Royal Council^ which reinstated them in their rights^ and 
since then Padre Herrador had been seeking to obtain 
restitution of the property of his father which had been 
wrongfully sold.^ Here was a family w^hich for hundreds 
of years had been undoubted Christians^ holding positions 
in the Church and magistracy^ yet obliged to struggle as 
though for life against peremptory exile and confiscation, 
nor is it likely that among the hundreds or thousands of 
similar cases, embraced in the orders to disregard all at- 
tempts to prove Christianity, there were many so fortunate 
as it was to escape the proscription. 

The Inquisition also was a sufferer from the expulsion 
which it had done so much to necessitate. In Valencia 
it lost the 2500 annual ducats which replaced the confis- 
cations, and also the fines and penances which it levied 
so liberally. In Aragon and Catalonia it lost the confis- 

1 MSS. of Bodleian Library, Arch. 8. 130. 



376 RESULTS. 

cations^ and in all three kingdoms the censos in which its 
capital had been invested. In Valencia alone these losses 
amounted to 17^679 libras of revenue. The Inquisition 
habitually pleaded poverty, and, whatever its revenues 
were, it was always grasping for more, and now it had 
substantial reasons for seeking a share in the general 
plunder. As early as November, 1610, it was reported 
that the king had granted to the Inquisition all the lands 
that had fallen in to the crown in Valencia and Aragon, 
subject to the liens and censos on them.^ If this was 
proposed the Inquisition probably hesitated to make so 
dubious a bargain, for, as we have seen, the royal lands 
were sold. It had presented consultas to the king, June 
22d and July 27, 1610, representing the poverty to which 
the tribunal of Saragossa was reduced by the expulsion, 
and this was partly met, in 1614, by the donation alluded 
to above, from the sales of the escheated lands, of 49,188 
libras, which, invested in censos at five per cent., brought 
in a revenue of 24,524 reales. The tribunal of Valencia 
continued to suffer, and, in 1612, those of Granada and 
Seville were ordered to lend it a thousand ducats each to 
pay its salaries, while in 1614 Philip procured from Paul 
V. a brief, authorizing the diversion to it of 650 crowns 
of revenue from the foundations of the Morisco colleges, 
2500 crowns having already been given to it from them. 
Then, in 1615, on the occasion of a royal visit to Valen- 
cia, an effort was made to get from the king for it a por- 
tion of the lands which had reverted to the crown, but 
with what success does not appear. Whether successful 
or not, its poverty was not relieved, for in 1617 it had not 

^ Cabrera, Kelaciones, p, 423, 



LOSSES OF THE INQUISITION. 377 

money for the salaries, and its receiver of* confiscations 
was ordered to distribute ratably among the officials his 
collections as fast as they were made ; there was probably 
some attempt on foot to relieve its chronic distress, for 
in 1618 w^e find the Suprema ordering it to submit a de- 
tailed statement of all its property and sources of income 
and also of its expenses. January 30, 1617, the Suprema 
again appealed to the king in favor of the Inquisition of 
Saragossa, and in 1619 it represented to him that the 
tribunals had been reduced to such extreme poverty by 
the expulsion that he must either suppress some of them 
or make good the deficit out of his ow^n purse. This ap- 
pears to have failed of its object, for on May 30, 1620, 
there is another appeal for Saragossa ; it had suffered a 
reduction of 19,000 reales of revenue and was unable to 
pay the salaries of its officials.^ 

A burdensome legacy left by the Moriscos, which 
created great excitement at the time, was the large amount 
of counterfeit coinage which they succeeded in issuing, 
and which, as we have seen, found eager purchasers at 
four or five to one in silver or gold. These deposited it 
in the bank of Valencia, which paid it out as good money. 
Then there came a proclamation forbidding its circulation, 
and the confusion was inextricable, as there was no other 
currency, leading to frequent quarrels and murders in the 
daily petty transactions for bread and meat. There were 

^ Danvila, p. 331.— Archive de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 19, fol. 
100 ; Libro 30, fol. 31 ; Libro 940, fol. 44.— Archivo Hist. Nacional, 
Inqn de Valencia, leg. 6, No. 2, fol. 28, 58, 81, 140.— Bulario de la 
Orden de Santiago, Libro — , fol. 434. — Biblioteca Nacional, Seccion de 
MSS. X 157, fol. 244. 



378 RESULTS. 

threats of a popular risings and another proclamation 
appeared permitting the circulation of all coins bearing a 
stamp and discriminating only against those which were 
merely nail-heads or pieces of tin or lead. Other proclama- 
tions followed^ for the country was full of coiners^ taught 
by the Moriscos, who sold them stamps and instructed them 
in the art. In the frightful condition of the Spanish 
currency^ consisting almost wholly^ for daily transac- 
tions^ in the debased and worn vellon coinage^ the busi- 
ness was easy and profitable^ and the Christians followed 
it eagerly^ choking up the channels of trade^ until the 
city felt obliged to redeem all the spurious money. The 
guards at the gates searched all who entered and registered 
all the counterfeits found on them^ which were redeemed 
at a specified place, and in a few days there was accumu- 
lated in the sacristy of the cathedral^ where it was stored^ 
more than 300^000 ducats of it. In all, the redemption 
cost the city 401,500 gold crowns. This was but a tem- 
porary relief, for fresh issues kept pouring forth, and 
though the coiners were prosecuted they laughed at the 
punishment, which was only a fine of 300 ducats, so that 
all they could make over this was pure gain. This was 
represented to the king, who promptly made it a capital 
offence, and there were so many convictions that scarce a 
week passed without two or three executions. In the 
single district of Murviedro over a hundred and fifty 
persons, some of them high in station, were arrested or 
fled, and in the little town of Torrente twenty persons 
were implicated, and so it was everywhere, and above all 
in the city. May 8, 1610, a gentleman from Murviedro 
was beheaded, and on the 10th the fiscal, or prosecuting 
officer, denounced a company of forty-six persons who 



COUNTERFEITERS. 379 

carried on the nianufacture as an established business, 
employing workmen at regular wages. Quite a number 
of familiars of the Inquisition were detected by the civil 
authorities in the work. They were, as usual, claimed 
by it as subject to its exclusive jurisdiction, and conse- 
quently escaped the death penalty. In fact Salvador 
Mir, one of them, tried in 1614, had already, ten years 
earlier, been punished by the Inquisition for the same 
offence, but it had not removed him from office ; on the con- 
trary, it had appointed his son, Joseph Mir, also a familiar, 
and both of them were sentenced as accomplices in 1614. 
Barcelona suffered as much as, if not more than, Valen- 
cia, though we have not the details, and the trouble long 
continued, for as the State was the chief counterfeiter, 
the temptation to imitate its example was irresistible. In 
1614 some attention was excited by the arrest for this 
crime of Don Garcia de Alarcon, of Granada, the son of 
a rich and prominent father ; he confessed and his tools 
were found, and as his indiscretion was coupled with 
sorcery it was expected that he w^ould be burnt.^ 

The diminished incomes of churches and landed pro- 
prietors were only a symptom of the permanent injury to 
the agriculture and productive industry of Spain, result- 
ing from the exile of so large a body of its most efficient 
workers. It was a notorious fact that the Christian popu- 
lation had a settled aversion to labor, which was con- 
temptuously regarded as dishonoring. This is repeatedly 
dwelt upon by the Venitian envoys in the sixteenth cen- 

^ Fonseca, pp. 256-60. — Bledae Defensio Fidei, p. 505 ; Cronica, p. 
923. — Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 688, fol. 601-607. — 
Cabrera, Eelaciones, p. 549. 



380 RESULTS. 

tury as a marked national characteristic^ applicable 
alike to husbandry and the mechanic arts ; the Span- 
ish are described as most indolent cultivators and so 
lazy in hand-work that what in other lands would be 
done in a month would in Spain not be completed in 
four. Agriculture was admittedly distasteful^ and the 
great resources of the land were most imperfectly devel- 
oped^ yet of what was produced but little was consumed 
at home ; it was exported in the raw state to be worked 
up abroad and brought back after the skilled labor of 
other lands had been profitably employed on it. As 
Federico Badoero says^ in 1557^ the fine Spanish wools 
were woven in only four places in Castile^ while 60^000 
bales were annually sent to France^ Flanders^ and Italy^ 
whither Spaniards resorted for their cloths and tapes- 
tries.^ It was universally recognized that no Spaniard 
brought up his children to honest industry. Those who 
could not find a career in the army or service of the State 
were thrust into the Church ; a single daughter would be 
furnished with a marriage portion^ and the rest would be 
placed in convents. Navarrete deplores the existence of 
four thousand Latin schools^ crowded with the sons of 
peasants^ while the fields were deserted^ and those of the 
pupils who^ with a smattering of learnings could not gain a 
living in the Church, became beggars or tramps or robbers.^ 

1 Eelazioni Venete, Serie I. T. III. p. 256 ; T. V. pp. 82, 139, 163, 
286. Dom Clemencin (Elogio de la Keyna Isabel, p. 301), in his 
enumeration of the causes of the decadence of Spain, includes " el 
desonor del trabajo, la calificacion de viles prodigada a los oficios y 
profesiones utiles." See also the representation of the cortes of 1594 
to Philip II. as to the universal poverty, the diminution of the popu- 
lation and falling off in production. — Ibid. p. 302. 

^ Navarrete, Conservacion de Monarquias, pp. 67, 299. 



INCREASE OF THE CLERGY. 381 

This inordinate growth of the clergy, and especially of 
the regulars, while the productive population was dimin- 
ishing, was a subject of earnest solicitude to Spanish pub- 
licists, especially as the lands acquired by them were 
relieved from taxation, and it goes far to explain the ex- 
ceedingly slow recuperation from the loss of the Moriscos. 
Throughout the middle ages there had scarce been an 
assembly of the cortes that had not called attention to it, 
and now the abnormal growth was proceeding with in- 
creased rapidity, stimulated by the universal misery, for, 
as Francisco Solano Salazar said, in 1627, in a memorial 
to Philip IV., it is only in the convents that people are 
not dying of hunger.^ In 1603 Philip III. held a secret 
consultation with learned theologians, including the heads 
of some of the religious Orders, who all advised that a 
check be placed on this excessive growth. In 1618 the 
cortes petitioned him in the same sense, and in 1619 a 
celebrated consulta of the Council of Castile enumerated 
this as one of the causes of the increasing public distress.^ 
In 1624 Fray Angel Manrique deplores the fact that 
there is not a town in which the number of convents had 
not trebled within fifty years, while Burgos, which used 
to have 7000 hearths now has only 900, Leon which 

^ Picatoste, La Grandeza y Decadencia de Espana, III. 36 (Madrid, 
1887). 

2 Gil Gonzalez Davila, Vida de Felipe III., pp. 214, 215, 225 (Ma- 
drid, 1771). Davila adds that, though, he is a priest himself, he must 
confess that there are too many ecclesiastics. In the year he writes 
(1635) there were 32,000 Dominicans and Franciscans in Spain, and in 
the sees of Calahorra and Pampeluna 24,000 secular clergy, and he asks 
how many are there in the other orders and other bishoprics (p. 215). 

Some fifty years earlier there were in Seville alone 15,000 priests, 
including both seculars and regulars. — Miscelanea de Zapata (Memorial 
Hist, espanol, XI. 59). 



382 BESULTS, 

formerly had 5000 now has but 500^ while the smaller 
places are depopulated^ the middle-sized ones are rapidly 
becoming so^ and the wealth of the Church was similarly 
overgrown to the great detriment of the republic/ In 
1625 Doctor Pedro de Salazar^ Penitentiary of the church 
of Toledo^ says that in spite of a privilege from Alfonso 
the Wise^ prohibiting the erection of additional convents 
within the confined limits of the city^ the six older ones 
had been enlarged and numerous new ones founded^ so 
that they had occupied more than fifty royal and noble 
palaces and over 600 smaller houses, and he attributes to 
the growth of the ecclesiastical bodies the fact that Spain 
had but a fourth of its former population.^ The process 
went on with increasing momentum to escape the burden 
of the heavier State taxation, which thus fell with added 
weight on the diminishing lay population. In 1670 the 
attention of the government was called to it by an appeal 
for relief from the town of Camarma de Ester uelas, repre- 
senting that by the purchase of lands by convents its 
population had been reduced from 300 families to 70, of 
which 30 were labradores, on whom thus fell the whole 
burden formerly borne by the 300. The Finance Council, 
to which the petition was referred, replied that this was 
the case with many other towns, but that the cure lay 
with the Council of Castile.^ Seven years later, in 1677, 
there was a futile attempt to check these evils by a royal 
edict complaining of the disorders arising from the over- 

^ Campomanes, Tratado de la Regalia de Amortizacion, p. 255 
(Madrid, 1765). 

^ Pedro de Salazar y de Mendoza, Cronica del Gran Cardenal de 
Espana, Lib. I. cap. 68 (Toledo, 1625). 

^ Campomanes, p. 209. 



CIUDAD-EEAL. 383 

grown numbers of the secular clergy and from the devices 
and frauds employed to evade the salutary regulations of 
the Council of Trent^ which the bishops were ordered to 
enforce strictly ; as for the excessive number of convents^ 
application had been made to the pope for power to regu- 
late them.^ 

While indolence and religious ardor thus combined to 
reduce the numbers and productive energy of the popu- 
lation^ its most energetic members were drawn off for ser- 
vice in the endless foreign wars and in developing the 
colonies of the New World. It was under such circum- 
stances that Spanish statesmanship yielded to its fears 
and to the pressure of bigotry to eject the only class on 
which it could rely for the development of the resources 
and the prosperity of the land — a class which could so 
readily have been retained^ perhaps even at the last mo- 
ment^ by wise measures of conciliation and by permitting 
the expatriation of those who were irreconcilable. 

The economical results of Spanish intolerance are 
epitomized in Ciudad-Real^ the capital of la Mancha. 
Founded in the thirteenth century by Alfonso the Wise, 
the liberal privileges which he granted attracted to it 
many Jews and Moors. An assessment of 1290 shows 
that its Jewish aljama already contained 8828 tax-payers 
(heads of families and adult males) paying, at three gold 
maravedis a head, 26,484 mrs. At the expulsion of the 
Jews, in 1492, it of course lost these— or what was left of 
them after previous massacres, persecutions, and forced 
conversions. To some extent their place was supplied 
by the Moriscos sent there, in 1570, from Granada. These, 

1 Autos Acordados, Libro iv. Tit. i., Auto 4, || 20, 21, 27. 



384 RESULTS, 

again^ with all the ancient MudSjares were expelled in 
1610^ leaving the once flourishing city desolate and almost 
depopulated. In 1621 it numbered only 5060 souls in 
all ; the hidalgos who remained disdained to cultivate its 
lands^ and the cloth industry which the Moriscos had built 
up was destroyed. To resuscitate it^ Philip IV.^ in 1623^ 
granted it a free market in a charter in which he said 
that formerly it contained twelve thousand households, but 
now it had little more than a thousand, most of them 
steeped in poverty ; that in the expulsion of the Moriscos 
it had lost five thousand persons of those who chiefly 
contributed to its prosperity and provided for its support. 
More than a century elapsed before it recovered from the 
blow.^ In the face of such facts it is not difficult to 
identify one of the chief factors in the rapid decline of 
Spanish population and prosperity. 

In the terrible atrophy which fell upon Spain as the 
seventeenth century advanced there were earnest inquiries 
made as to its causes and suggestions for its relief. By 
royal order the Duke of Lerma, June 6, 1618, called upon 
the Council of Castile to consider the rapid depopulation 
of the land and to devise a remedy. The answer was 
delayed until February 1, 1619, when it presented a con- 
sulta describing the condition as most deplorable, the 
population diminishing and towns and villages becoming 
deserted. It makes no allusion to the expulsion of the 
Moriscos, to the overgrown numbers of the clergy, to the 
shocking condition of the currency, or to the popular aver- 
sion to honest labor, but ascribes the evil chiefly to the ex- 



^ Padre Merchan, La Juderia y la Inquisicion de Ciudad-Keal, pp. 
148, 151, 245 (Ciudad-Keal, 1893). 



REMEDIES PilOPOSET), 385 

cessive burden of the most injudicious system of taxation 
which perhaps any civilized nation ever devised, which 
led many to abandon their properties in despair. Other 
subsidiary causes were enumerated, among which were the 
drain caused by the importation of silks, embroideries, and 
other luxuries, and the prodigality with w^hich the king 
had enriched his favorites with excessive grants, the re- 
sumption of which it recommended in imitation of former 
monarchs, such as Henry III., Juan II., and Ferdinand 
and Isabella.^ In 1625 the cortes concerned themselves 
with the matter, and, at the request of some of the mem- 
bers, Miguel Caxa de Leruela drew up a long memorial 
which found so much favor that it w^as printed at the 
royal expense. In it he attributes the evil to the diminu- 
tion of the cattle and sheep industry through injudicious 
legislation and the absorption of common pasturages by 
the nobles. His arguments are not of value, but some of 
his facts show the rapid decadence in progress at the 
time. In 1600, he says, at Cuenca there were 6,250,000 
pounds of wool washed for export and 3,750,000 dyed 
for working up at home ; now there are only 200,000 
exported and 250,000 worked. To this falling off in 
production he attributes the fact that there are no manu- 
factures, and that for lack of employment so many are 
driven into the Church. Within thirty-six years the 
number of cattle had fallen off by 12,000,000 head, and 
when, in 1627 and 1628, the scarcity of meat in Madrid 
caused commissioners to be sent out to seize cattle and 
bring them to the city they were obliged to take half- 
grown steers and to carry off oxen from the plough, to the 

1 Gil Gonzalez Davila, Vida de Felipe III. p. 216. 

25 



386 RESULTS. 

despair of the husbandmen.^ Of course^ no country could 
flourish in which the government permitted itself such 
arbitrary abuses. 

While these publicists seem by tacit agreement to avoid 
complaining of the expulsion as one of the causes of Span- 
ish decadence^ there was no hesitation on the part of the 
sufferers to attribute to it their evil case, as we have seen 
in the grant to Ciudad-Eeal in 1623. Similarly in 1622 
Philip IV.; in conceding to the cities of Valencia a re- 
duction of their burdens, points out how they have been 
affected both by the withdrawal of inhabitants to people 
the deserted lands and by their loss of revenue from the 
excise on the articles which the Moriscos in their districts 
formerly consumed, the traffic in which moreover was a 
source of profit to their merchants.^ In every way the 
community suffered, both in production and in consump- 
tion. It was long before the wounds thus inflicted could 
even be partially healed and industry recover from the 
confusion entailed by the blow. In 1645 the Brazo Real 
of the cortes of Valencia represented that the royal rev- 
enues suffered greatly by reason of rich and fertile lands 
capable of raising many thousand bushels of wheat lying 
idle, for they could be neither sold nor rented on account 
of the liens and debts hanging over them, which no one 
dared to encounter. It was therefore suggested that the 
magistrates of each town should fix a term within which 
the owners or creditors should cultivate the lands, failing 



^ Caxa de Leruela, Eestauracion de la Abundancia de Espana, pp. 
50, 53, 75, 87 (Madrid, 1713). The first edition of this work appeared 
in 1631, and it was printed a third time in 1732, showing in what high 
estimation it was held. 

2 Coleccion de Doc. ined. T. XVIII. p. 148. 



PERSISTENT COMPLICATIONS. 387 

which they should be rented for money or kind^ payable 
to an official who should^ after making proper deductions^ 
hand the balance to the creditors. To this the king as- 
sented in so far as concerned lands belonging to the mem- 
bers of the Brazo Real which had lain untilled for six 
years.^ This represents one of the innumerable questions 
which arose and took long to settle^ and another is sug- 
gested by the cortes of Saragossa^ in 1646^ when, in order- 
ing a'new assessment of the fogaje or hearth-tax^ it gives 
as a reason the diminution of the fogajes in some places 
by the expulsion of the Moriscos and other troubles and 
their increase in others.^ A population^ on which for 
centuries had rested so large a part of the productive in- 
dustry and financial arrangements of the land, could not 
be suddenly torn up and cast out without scattering ruin 
broadcast and raising a cloud of complications the settle- 
ment of which dragged on for weary decades. It is char- 
acteristic of the Spanish statesmanship of the period that 
no thought was given to these matters and no provision 
made for them in the long-drawn consultations over the 
Morisco question. There w^ere endless debates as to the 
comparative expediency of the various projects proposed, 
and, when expulsion was determined upon, as to the methods 
of eEEecting it, what the exiles should be allowed to 
take with them, and what should be done wdth the chil- 
dren, but the collateral consequences were left to chance, 
with a contempt for practical details and for the welfare 
of the subject which goes far to explain the failure of 
Spanish administration. 

^ Danvila, p. 341. 

2 Fueros y Actos de Corte en Zaragoza, 1646 y 1647, p. 4 (Zaragoza, 
1647). 



388 RESULTS. 

Whatever else was gained or lost^ at least the end was 
virtually attained of eradicating the hated faith of Islam^ 
in so far as is revealed by the accessible records of the 
Inquisition^ the exceptions being scarce more than suffi- 
cient to show that its vigilance was not relaxed. It is 
true that for awhile there were Morisco slaves to be 
looked after — those captured and sold in the risings 
at del Aguar and the Muela de Cortes^ and those who 
voluntarily returned from Africa to become slaves. A 
letter of March 14^ 1616^ from the commissioner of the 
Inquisition at Denia to the tribunal of Valencia^ asks for 
instructions concerning some baptized Morisco slaves who 
had plotted to escape to Barbary^ thus showing how care- 
fully they were watched.^ In the incessant maritime 
warfare of the Mediterranean^ Moorish prisoners were 
perpetually being brought in and sold as slaves, and there 
grew to be an objection even to these unless they were 
baptized. Repeated prohibitions of keeping such in 
Madrid were issued, and as these were not observed an 
edict, in 1626, orders all unbaptized slaves to be removed 
within fifteen days under pain of confiscation. In view 
of their owners^ rights it was impossible to expel them 
from the kingdom, but they were not infrequently manu- 
mitted or purchased their freedom, and their presence 
then was regarded as obnoxious. An edict of 1712 
orders their expulsion within the term that may be 
allowed by the local magistrates to collect their families 
and property and transfer them to Africa.^ The un- 
reasoning fanaticism, which had been so sedulously culti- 



^ Arcliivo Hist. Nacional, Inq^i de Valencia, Legajo 372. 
2 Autos Acordados, Libro VIII. Tit. ii. Autos 4, 6. 



RELIGIOUS ZEAL, 389 

vated in these matters^ was exemplified by an occurrence 
in Malaga^ June 9^ 1637^ when a fugitive Moorish slave 
girl applied to the almoner of the bishop for baptism. 
He sent for a priest^ but before he came she changed her 
mind, and he went away, carrying the sacrament as usual. 
Some foolish women, seeing him departing hurriedly, be- 
gan to cry out that some Moorish friends of the girl had 
trampled on the sacrament. Immediately the city rose 
in a tumult ; women rushed forth like furies, assailing 
with sticks and stones all the Moors thev encountered, 
and slaying them without mercy, although they declared 
themselves to be Christians. A cry arose that the Moors 
were trying to burn the city ; the bells were rung, and 
bands sallied forth throughout the vicinity, killing all the 
slaves they could find. A Portuguese vessel was leaving 
the port ; some one said they were Moors, and imme- 
diately a brigantine started in chase, overtook her, and 
massacred the whole crew. The number of slaves of 
both sexes butchered in the affair was reckoned at sixty. ^ 
In a population animated by such ferocious religious 
zeal it was not easy for any Morisco or descendant of 
Moriscos guilty of adhering to the religion of his fathers 
to escape denunciation to the Holy Office, so that the 
rarity of the cases in the records proves how thoroughly 
the land had been purified by the heroic treatment ad- 
ministered. The Inquisition, on its side, kept itself in 
readiness to deal with such culprits. In a manual of in- 
structions drawn up in Saragossa, about 1625 or 1630, 
there is a fairly complete list and description of Moorish 
ceremonies with which it says inquisitors must be familiar 

^ Cartas de Jesuitas (Memorial Historico espanol, XIV. 143). 



390 RESULTS. 

in order to examine properly tliose accused of Mahomet- 
anism/ A few scattering cases occur which may prob- 
ably be referred to baptized slaves or to the children 
retained at the time of expulsion — ^as^ for instance, Ger- 
onimo Buenaventura, described as a Morisco of Alcaneta 
in Valencia, condemned to relaxation for pertinacity by 
the tribunal there and transferred for execution, in Decem- 
ber, 1635, to Yalladolid, where he was still lying at the 
end of 1637, awaiting an auto de fe — for these costly 
solemnities were growing infrequent with the increasing 
poverty of all departments of the government — and in 
May, 1638, he was finally sent to Saragossa where he 
doubtless was duly despatched.^ In 1649 the Valencia 
tribunal prosecuted some baptized slaves detected in an 
attempt to escape to Barbary, which was presumptive 
evidence of unsoundness in the faith. ^ 

An occasional Christian renegade, captured at sea and 
handed over for trial to the Inquisition, serves to account 
for the casual appearance of Mahometanism in the autos 
de fe. In that of Cordova, December 2, 1625, there 
were sixty-eight Judaizers but only one Mahometan, 
Francisco de Luque, a renegade who had sailed as a 
corsair and had made the pilgrimage to Mecca, of which 
he gave an account more picturesque than veridical ; he 
was reconciled with two hundred lashes, four years of 
galleys, and perpetual imprisonment with the sanbenito. 
In the Barcelona auto de fe of June 21, 1627, there were 
three renegades who had been brought in by the galleys ; 
of these one was an old man, pertinacious in his faith, 

^ Archive Hist. Nacional, Inq^ de Valencia. 

^ Archive de Simancas, Inquisicion, Legajo 552, fol. 22, 23. 

^ Archive Hist. Nacional, Inq^ de Valencia, Legajo 387. 



DISAPPEARANCE OF MAHOMETANISM, 391 

who was duly relaxed, but as he was garrotted before 
burnlug it shows that he recanted at the last.^ In the 
Cordova auto de fe of December 21, 1627, there were 
eighty-one culprits, but not a single Mahometan, while in 
that of May 3, 1655, out of eighty-seven cases there was 
but one, Talfa, a Moorish woman slave, who had been 
baptized and who was reconciled with a hundred lashes 
for endeavoring to escape to Barbary.^ So, in the great 
Madrid auto de fe of June 30, 1680, to which victims 
were brought from all parts of Spain, there was but one 
Mahometan, Lazaro Fernandez, alias Mustafa, a native 
of Cadiz, who had apostatized and sailed as a corsair ; 
he was pertinacious in his adopted faith and was burnt 
alive.^ In the Toledo auto de fe of April 7, 1669, there 
appeared a Moorish slave from the mines of Almaden, 
named Soliman or Francisco de la Candelaria, for ridicul- 
ing the sacraments when taking communion, for which 
he was punished -with a hundred lashes.^ Scattering 

^ Parets, Sucesos de Catalmla (Memorial Hist, espanol, XX. 17-18). 

^ Matiite 7 Luquin, Coleccion de los Autos de Fe de Cordoba, pp. 
37, 65, 189 (Cordoba, 1839). 

^ Olmo, Eelacion del kxxio de la Fee celebrada en Madrid 30 de 
Junio de 1680, p. 262 (Madrid, 1680). Padre Jeronimo GraciaD, the 
spiritual director of Santa Teresa, who lav a captive in Tunis for two 
or three years, about 1595, says that he met there many renegades who 
would gladly have escaped to Spain but for fear of the Inquisition, 
saying that they would be punished if they did not bring testimony 
from some well-known person that they came home voluntarily with a 
desire to return to Christianity. Gracian was supposed to be an in- 
quisitor or an archbishop, and was frequently applied to for such cer- 
tificates, which he gave, although if detected he would have been burnt 
alive. He subsequently knew of four of these who had been merci- 
fully treated by the Inquisition in absolving them with secret penance. 
— Escritos de Santa Teresa, 11. 464 (Madrid, 1877). 

^ Archivo Hist. Xacional, Inq^ de Toledo, Legajo 1. 



392 RESULTS. 

cases such as these show that vigilance was unrelaxed^ 
yet in the reports of the tribunal of Valladolid for twenty- 
nine of the years between 1622 and 1662^ there is only a 
single case of Mahometanism^ and a record of all the 
cases decided by that of Toledo from 1648 to 1794 shows 
only five.^ In a similar record of cases tried by the In- 
quisition of Madrid from 1703 to 1820 there is but a 
single Mahometan^ and he was a renegade.^ 

There were still, however, descendants of the Moriscos 
whose pedigree seems to have been jealously preserved by 
their neighbors, causing them to be known as such. In 
the trial at Toledo of Angela Nunez Marquez for Juda- 
ism, she confessed that before her arrest, October 24, 
1678, she hid a quantity of silk in the house of Isabel de 
Bernardo, Morisca^ of Pastrana.^ In some places, more- 
over, these remnants managed to preserve a secret organ- 
ization for the maintenance of their ancestral faith. Such 
a one was discovered in Granada, in 1727, leading to 
profitable confiscations for which the Inquisition rewarded 
the chief informer, Diego Diaz, with a pension of a hundred 
ducats a year, continued to his family, and when, in 1769, 
his daughters, Maria, Francisca, and Luciana, begged for 
a Christmas gift the Suprema granted them 200 reales 
vellon^ It was possibly one of these Granadans, Ana del 
Castillo, who had removed to Jaen, who was condemned 
in the Cordova auto de fe of March 4, 1731, as a hereje 
Mahometana, to reconciliation, with confiscation and irre- 

^ Arcliivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Legajo 552. — Archivo Hist. 
Nacional, uhi sup. 

^ Arcliivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 879. 

^ Proceso de Angela Nunez Marquez, fol. 169 (MS. penes me). 

^ Arcliivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Legajo 1479, fol. 2. 



OCCASIONAL RENEGADES. 393 

missible perpetual prison.^ Somewhat similar was the 
report, in 1769, of the Inquisition to Carlos III., that 
it had verified the existence of a mosque in Cartagena, 
maintained by the New Christians.^ What was the result 
of this does not appear, but if there were prosecutions 
and convictions they may safely be assumed to be the 
last suffered by Moriscos. There exists a complete record 
of all cases decided by all the tribunals of Spain, from 
1780 to the suppression of the Inquisition in 1820, and 
in this voluminous catalogue there is not a single Mo- 
risco. Renegades still occasionally made their appearance ; 
when forced labor in the African presidios took the place 
of the galleys as a punishment, there were opportunities 
afforded for escape to the Moors which inferred apostasy, 
and there was still the capture and enslavement by cor- 
sairs. Sometimes these were recaptured and handed over 
to the Inquisition ; sometimes they presented themselves 
voluntarily for reconciliation; of the former class there were 
five cases in the decade 1780-89 ; four between 1790 and 
1799, and none subsequently ; of the latter there were four 
in 1788, seven between 1790 and 179 9, and two after 1800.^ 

1 Matute J Luquin, p. 268. * Danvila, p. 318. 

^ Archly o Hist. Nacional, Inq^i de Valencia, Legajo 100. 

In 1727 the gloomy piety of Philip V. awoke to the scandal of tol- 
erating Mahometanism among the Moros de paz of his territory of 
Oran. November 7, 1727, the inquisitor-general wrote to the tribunal 
of Valencia that the king has been reflecting upon this ; these Moors 
reside on the frontier, some of them maintain as many women as they 
can and redeem female slaves, others even ride on horseback, and bear 
arms, and conversions among them are rare, while their numbers may 
be very injurious to religion and the State. The inquisitors were, 
therefore, asked to suggest remedies for these evils, and they in their 
turn handed over the inquiry to the commissioners at the sea-ports. — 
Archivo Hist. Nacional, Inq^ de Valencia, Legajo 14, No. 1, fol. 121. 



394 RESULTS. 

The judgments rendered by modern Spanish authorities 
on the tragedy of the expulsion and its effects naturally 
vary with the conservatism or liberalism of the writer. 
The a priori view of the independent reasoner necessarily 
must be that the sudden ejectment of half a million of in- 
dustrious workers from a population rapidly diminishing, 
and in a land that was ever sinking deeper into poverty 
and inertia^, could not but inflict a virtually immedicable 
wound^ which though in time it might heal over super- 
ficially, yet would leave the sufferer weakened and lowered 
in vitality. Whether this was so in reality is a plain 
question of fact about which there ought not to be a dis- 
pute among those who have studied the abundant sources 
of information and can exercise their powers of observa- 
tion on the existing situatioUj but the answer to the ques- 
tion involves such deep-rooted convictions in religion and 
politics that the diversity of opinion expressed affords an 
instructive illustration of the subjectivity from which so 
few historians can emancipate themselves. One with 
ecclesiastical sympathies, like Vicente de la Fuente, ridi- 
cules the notion that the expulsion was a cause of the 
decadence of Spain; a nation, he says, will lose 150,000 
men in an epidemic or a civil war, and he scornfully asks 
why there should be such clamor against Philip III.^ A 
conservative such as Menendez y Pelayo contents himself 
with declaring it to have been the inevitable result of an 
historical law, in which the only source of regret is that 
it was so long delayed ; Valencia was rapidly repopu- 
lated, the new settlers soon learned the arts of agricul- 
ture, and the admirable system of irrigation has been pre- 

^ V. de la Fuente, Historia eclesiastica de Espana, III. 230. 



MODERN OPINIONS. 395 

served to the present day ; it is a mistake to ascribe to it 
the decadence of manufactures which had never been 
largely in the hands of the Moriscos ; that decadence had 
set in half a century earlier^ caused by the discovery of 
America^ which converted Spain first into a land of ad- 
venturers and then into one of beggared hidalgos.^ Dan- 
vila y Collado^ from whose researches I have quoted so 
largely, sums up the philosophy of the event in saying 
that humanity and religion had a struggle in which the 
latter was victorious ; there was no mercy for the Moris- 
cos, but religious unity shone with radiant splendor in 
the Spanish heavens, and that country is happy which is 
as one in its great sentiments ; it is only an historical 
ophthalmia which regards the Moriscos as industrially 
useful to Spain ; had they been so they would have car- 
ried prosperity to Barbary, whither they went.^ Janer, 
who rates highly the industry and skill of the Moriscos 
in the arts and crafts as well as in agriculture, agrees 
with Campomanes in assigning to the expulsion the point 
of decadence of Spanish manufactures, Arabia Felix, he 
says, was converted into Arabia Deserta ; famine speedily 
made itself felt everywhere ; to the active movement of 
the people succeeded the mournful silence of the despo- 
blados ; to the travel on the roads succeeded the high- 
waymen who infested them, and who found refuge in the 
deserted villages. Yet he adds that the expulsion was 
only one of the causes of depopulation and decadence ; 
these had already made alarming progress when the ex- 
pulsion made them more manifest and precipitated the 



^ Menendez y Pelayo, Heterodoxos espanoles, III. 632, 634. 
2 Danvila, pp. 320-3, 



396 RESULTS. 

ruin^ for the proscribed race was the most agricultural^ 
industrious^ and productive in the land^ but^ notwith- 
standing this, expulsion was a religious and political 
necessity, and to-day religious unity is the most pre- 
cious jewel of the Spanish people/ Modesto Lafuente, 
the liberal historian of Spain, has no hesitation in char- 
acterizing the expulsion as the most calamitous measure 
that can be conceived from an economical point of view, 
inflicting a blow on the public wealth from which it is 
not too much to say that it has not yet recovered.^ Pica- 
toste, whose researches into the history of the period are 
minute, presents what, in some respects, is the most rea- 
sonable view of the situation. The expulsion he holds to 
have been the greatest of calamities, and the responsibil- 
ity of Philip III. and his predecessors lies, on the one 
hand, in not guarding the material interests which would 
have satisfied the industrious Moriscos, and, on the other, 
in not having strength to repress their rebellious tenden- 
cies. The reduplication of imposts, the contempt for 
labor, religious persecution, the oppression of the Inqui- 
sition, inflamed them against a weak and short-sighted 
government till this extreme remedy became a necessity. 
The historians and publicists who have defended it com- 
mit ihQ gravest of errors in looking only to the necessity 
of the moment, for, in admitting its political necessity, we 
cannot forget that this deplorable relation was created 
by the faults of the government. As for its results, the 
loss of their labors in agriculture and many arts and 
crafts, the contempt with y\^hich not only the race but its 

1 Janer, pp. 95-109, 113. 

^ Lafuente, Historia general de Espana, XV. 393-4, 



MISERY OF SPAIN. 397 

industry was regarded^ the improvidence of the govern- 
ment^ which made no effort to replace that industry^ the 
increase of taxation to make good the deficit arising 
from their absence, were the most efficient causes of the 
misery which overtook Spain — a misery which reached a 
point incomparably beyond that of the most downtrodden 
races of the earth, while the court was rioting in the most 
extravagant festivities. The procurador, Lobon, de- 
clared that one-half of the Spanish people were feeding 
on the herbs of the field which they disputed with the 
herds of cattle.^ 

If, as Menendez y Pelayo asserts, the expulsion was but 
the inevitable outcome of an historical law, that law can 
only be that retribution follows wrong. If it was a neces- 
sity under Philip III., that necessity was a purely artifi- 
cial one, created by the fanaticism and infatuation of the 
sixteenth century. If, from the times of the Kings of 
Leon and Counts of Castile and Barcelona, it was safe to 
keep Mudejares in the land, while the Christian chiefs 
were involved in almost constant strife with each other 
and making head against the powerful Arabs and Almo- 
ravides and Almohades — if during these tumultuous ages 
they could rely upon their Moorish subjects during war 
and profit by their industry during peace, the political 
necessity of uniformity of faith when Spain had become 
a united and powerful State and the Moors were scattered 
subjects, was self -evidently the merest illusion, born of 
intolerance. That intolerance was the result of the as- 
siduous teachings of the Church, listened to and respected 

^ Picatoste, La Grandeza y Decadencia de Espana, III. 101-2 (Mad- 
rid, 1887). 



398 RESULTS. 

only when Spain emerged from her isolation and began 
to take part as a world-power in the general movement 
of European politics^ when Aragon wrested Sicily from 
Charles of Anjou^ when the quarrel between Pedro the 
Cruel and Henry of Trastamara made Castile the battle- 
ground between England and France^ and when the 
Great Schism, which so weakened the papacy elsewhere, 
first brought Spain directly under its influence. Once 
set in the direction of intolerance, the intensity of the 
Spanish temperament carried it to its ultimate conclusions 
with a completeness that finds no parallel elsewhere, and 
when the impetuous arrogance of Ximenes destroyed 
Moorish faith in Spanish justice and honor, the fatal step 
was taken in a path that had but one ending. The 
Mudejares had been faithful subjects in times of stress 
and peril from their fellow-religionists over the borders, 
and there was no reason why they should not have re- 
mained so when isolated in a united Spain, gradually 
becoming Christianized under the influence of equitable 
treatment. The Moriscos were inevitably domestic ene- 
mies trained in every way to abhor a religion imposed on 
them by force and symbolized by injustice, oppression, 
and the horrors of the Inquisition. Under the theocratic 
influences which were becoming dominant in Spanish 
policy, it was impossible to apply to them the kindliness 
and tolerance which alone could render them contented 
and prosperous and the Christian religion attractive ; 
every effort to amend the situation only rendered it worse. 
They became a perpetual invitation to foreign enemies, a 
perpetual object of dread to Spanish statesmanship, and, as 
the power of Spain declined and her rulers lost the superb 
self-confidence of Ferdinand and of Charles Y., the only 



LOSS OF RECUPERATIVE POWER. 399 

course that they could devise was to crown a century of 
faithlessness and ^yrong by expatriation. To them the 
limb seemed incurably gangrenous^ and amputation the 
only remedy to save lif e^ even though it left a crippled and 
mutilated body. History offers few examples of retribu- 
tion so complete and so disastrous as that which followed 
on the fanatic labors of Ximenes. 

Yet, severe as was the shock, it could speedily have 
been overcome had Spain possessed the vigorous vitality 
which has enabled other nations to recover from even 
more serious misfortunes. It has been rather the fashion 
with Spanish writers to explain its long-drawn agony and 
paralysis by the exhaustion of its foreign wars and the 
drain of colonization, but the argument is fallacious. 
The Thirty Years^ AYar in Germany wrought greater 
ruin than all the conflicts in which Spain was involved, 
and though its traces long remained they were in time 
obliterated. The wars of Louis XIY. and of Napoleon 
exhausted France to a greater degree than those of 
Charles Y. and Philip II. exhausted Spain, yet in each 
case France showed an elasticitv which soon restored 
her to her place among the nations. England, with a 
narrow territory and starting with a population about one- 
third that of Spain, peopled Xorth America and Aus- 
tralia while constantly gaining in numbers at home and 
maintaining heavy armaments abroad. AVhere there is 
intellectual life and intelligent industry, where agricul- 
ture, the arts and manufactures bring employment and 
wealth, the recuperative power of a nation is incalculable, 
and it rebounds with marvellous rapidity from the depres- 
sion of war, while the swarming colonies which it sends 
forth are merely the overplus of its natural increase. 



400 RESULTS. 

The decadence of Spain was not caused merely by its loss 
of population in banishing Jews and Moriscos. for that 
loss could readily have been made up. It was that the 
Jews and Moriscos were economically the most valuable 
of its inhabitants^ whose industry in great part supported 
the rest. The pride that was taught to regard work as 
unworthy an Old Christian and led the beggared hidalgo 
to starve rather than to earn an honest living ; the in- 
dolence that preferred beggary or robbery to labor ; the 
fanaticism that regarded religious unity as the summum 
bonum to be maintained at the cost of any and all sacri- 
fice ; the impulses that consigned so many thousands to 
a life of celibacy ; a financial system so elaborately bad 
that in the effort to favor the consumer it wellnigh 
strangled production ; a theocratic spirit which stifled in- 
tellectual progress — all these united in preventing Spain 
from filling the gap in population and productiveness left 
by the expatriation of Jews and Moors. 

It is true that efforts were made to replace them by 
inviting foreigners to come as tradesmen and craftsmen, 
and in the larger cities many of them ministered to the 
follies and luxuries of the rich, but they were birds of 
passage who carried away with them such gains as they 
could accumulate, and no permanent settlement of desir- 
able immigrants could be expected in a land where they 
were regarded as degraded by labor and were subject to 
the sleepless supervision of the Inquisition for any care- 
less word or any neglect of the observances of religion. 
The fanaticism which expelled the Jew and the Morisco 
hung like a pall over the land, benumbing its energies 
and rendering recuperation impossible. Spain was the 
one land in which the Church had full opportunity to 



RELIGIOUS UNITY. 401 

fashion at her will the lives and aspirations of the people, 
and the result is seen in the misery and decrepitude 
which blasted the illimitable promises* of the opening 
sixteenth century. While the rest of Europe, in spite 
of wars and revolutions, was bounding forward in the 
eager competition of progress, Spain, sacrificing every- 
thing to religious unity, sank ever deeper in poverty and 
misery — a paradise for priests and friars and familiars 
of the Inquisition, where every iQtellectual impulse was 
repressed, every channel of intercourse with the outer 
world was guarded, every effort for material improvement 
was crippled. In vain the riches of the New World 
were poured into the hands of a race whose natural apti- 
tudes were inferior to none, in a land of which the re- 
sources were as great as when Moorish ingenuity and 
industry rendered it the most flourishing in Europe. 
Great as were the undoubted services of Isabella the 
Catholic and Cardinal Ximenes, the latent evil in their 
work overbalanced the good, for they taught the nation 
that religious unity was the paramount object to be at- 
tained, and in the pursuit of this it sacrificed material 
prosperity and intellectual development. 



26 



APPENDIX. 



I. 



Permission for the Moors of Portugal to Pass Through 
OR Settle in Castile (p. 23). 

( Archivo de Simancas, Patronato Eeal, Inquisicion, Legajo tinico, fol. 4) . 

En la ciudad de Merida veinte y tres dias del mes de Marzo ano 
del nascimiento de nuestro Salvador Jesucristo de mill e quatro- 
eientos e noventa e ocho anos un tal honrado e discrete senor el 
bachiller Alonso de la Torre, teniente de corregidor en este ciu- 
dad de Merida e su tierra por el muy magnifico senor Luys Porto- 
carrero senor de la villa de Palma gobernador de la provincia de 
Leon e corregidor de la dicha ciudad de merida e villa de Xerez 
cerca Badajoz por el Eey e la Eeina nuestros senores e en presencia 
de mi diego de caravajal escribano del Key e de la Eeina nuestros 
senores e escribano de la . . . e juzgado del dicho senor teni- 
ente de corregidor e de los testigos de yuso escriptos e sus nombres 
parescio All valiente moro vecino de la ciudad de Merida e pre- 
sento ante el dicho senor teniente de corregidor una carta de sus 
altezas firmada de sus reales nombres e sellada con su sello e refren- 
dada de Juan de la Parra su secretario e senalada en las espaldas 
de los del su muy alto consejo segun e por la dicha carta parescia, 
su tenor de la qual es este que se sigue. Don Fernando e dona 
Isabel por la gracia de Dyos Eei e Eeina de leon de aragon de 
cicilia de granada de toledo de Valencia de galicia de mallorcas 
de sevilla de cerdena de cordova de corcega de murcia de jaen de 
los algarbes de algecira e de gibraltar e de las islas de canaria 
condes de barcelona senores de viscaya e de molina duques de 
atenas y de neopatria condes de Euysellon e de cerdania mar- 
queses de orestan e de gociano, por quauto por parte de vos los 



404 APPENDIX, 

al jamas e moros del Eeyno de Portugal nos fue fecha relacion 
diciendo que por el serenisimo rey de portugal nuestro muy caro 
e muy amado primo vos esta mandado que dentro de cierto ter- 
mino todos saliesedes fuera de sus reinos e senorios e que no 
podiades salir dellos a parte ninguna sin yr y pasar por nuestros 
reinos e senorios ni menos venyr a bivir a los dichos nuestros 
reynos syn nuestra licencia e por vuestra parte nos fue suplicado 
e pedido por merced que husando con vosotros de piedad e cle- 
mencia vos mandasemos dar licencia para que vosotros e vuestras 
mujeres hijos e omes criados e vuestros byenes pudiesedes venir 
a estos nuestros reinos e senorios e estar en ellos el tiempo que 
vosotros quisieredes e yr de ellos cada e quando quisiesedes e asi 
mesmo para que pudiesedes pasar por los dichos nuestros reinos 
e por sus terminos asi por la mar como por la tierra e yr vos con 
vuestras cosas e hasiendas a otros reynos e parar donde quisie- 
sedes e por bien toviesedes e que sobre ello proveyesemos como 
la nuestra merced fuese e nos por facer merced e limosna a voso- 
tros los dichos moros por la presente vos damos licencia e facultad 
para que vosotros e vuestras mujeres e fijos e omes criados e con 
vuestras haziendas podais entrar, estar y venir en estos dichos 
nuestros Reynos y senorios todo el tiempo que quisieredes e por 
bien tovieredes e se quisieredes salir dellos lo podades fazer e 
sacar todos los bienes que en ellos tovieredes a los reynos e partes 
e logares e donde vosotros quisieredes e por bien tovieredes cada 
e quando que quisieredes sin que en ello vos sea puesto ni man- 
dado poner embargo ni empedimento alguno contando que no 
podais sacar ni llevar fuera destos nuestros Reynos oro ni plata 
ni las otras cosas para nos vedadas e por esta nuestra carta tomamos 
a vosotros e a vuestros bienes so nuestra guarda e hanpara e defen- 
dimiento real e mandamos e defendemos que persona ni personas 
algunas vos no fieran ni maten ni ligen ni prendan ni prenden 
ni mande ferir ni lijar ni matar ni prendar ni prendan ni tomar 
ni ocupar cosa alguna de lo vuestro contra razon e derecho e 
mandamos al principe don juan nuestro muy caro e muy amado 
fijo e a los infantes duques perl ados condes marqueses ricos 
ombres maestres de los ordeaes e a los del nuestro consejo e 
oydores alcaydes de los castellos e casas fuertes e lianas e a los 
alcaldes e alguaciles merinos prebostes e a otros jueces e justi- 
cias qualesquier asi de la nuestra casa e corte e chancilleria como 
de qualesquier ciudades villas e logares de los nuestros reynos e 



APPENDIX, 405 

senorios e qualesquier maestros capitanes de naos que andan o 
andovieren de armada o en otra qualesquier manera por los mares 
6 puertos e a vuestros (?) de nuestros reynos e qualesquier personas 
de qualesquier lei estada condicion dignidad e priminencia que 
sea que esta nuestra carta o todo lo en ello contenido guarden e 
cumplan e fagan guardar e cumplir todo e por todo segun que en 
ella se contiene e contra el tenor e forma della no vayan ni pasen 
ni consientan yr ni pasar por alguna manera e los unos ni los otros 
no fagades ni fagan andeal por alguna manera so penade la nues- 
tra merced y de dyez mill maravedises para la nuestra camara y 
demas mandamos al ome que vos esta nuestra carta mostrare que 
vos emplaze que parescades ante nos en la nuestra corte donde 
quier que nos seamos el dya que vos emplazare fasta quince dias 
primeros syguientes so la dicha pena so la qual mandamos a qual- 
quier escribano publico que para esto fuere llamado que de ende 
al que vos la mostrare testimonio sygnado con su sygno porque 
nos sepamos como se cumple nuestro mandado. Dada en la ciudad 
de Burgos veynte dias del mes de abril ano del senor de mill e 
quinientos e noventa e syete anos. Yo el Eey e yo la Eeina. Yo 
Juan de aparra su secretario del Eey e de la Eeina nuestros senores 
la fize escrebir por su mandado. 

E asi presentada la^icha carta de sus altezas en la manera que 
dicha es luego el dicho Ali valiente more e dicho que por quanto 
el siguiente dia aprovechar de un traslado de la dicha carta que 
pedia e pidio al dicho seiior teniente de corregidor le mande dar 
un traslado de la dicha carta original sygnado e autorizado en la 
manera que fagase qual quier traslado ponga su autoridad e decreto 
para que valga e fagase como la dicha carta de sus Altezas. 

E luego el dicho seiior teniente de corregidor dixo que vista la 
dicha carta de sus Altezas como no estaba rota ni chancellada ni 
en parte alguna sospechosa que mandaba e man do a mi el dicho 
diego de Carvajal escribano que saque un traslado de la dicha 
carta e lo de al dicho Ali valiente moro qualquier traslado dixo 
que ponia e puso su autoridad e decreto para que valiese e eciese 
fe bien asi e a tan complidamente como la dicha carta original 
de sus altezas e testigos que fueron presentes a lo que dicho es e 
vieron ler e corregir este dicho traslado con la dicha carta original 
de sus altezas Anton desquivel alguazil mayor e Martin gonzalez 
su lugar teniente de alguazil en la dicha ciudad de merida — e yo 
el dicho diego de Carvajal escrivano susodicho a todo lo qual dicho 



406 APPENDIX, 

es en uno con los dichos testigos presentes fuy e este traslado fize 
sacar e saque de la dicha carta original de sus altezas el qual va 
cierto e corregido en fe de lo qual fize aqui este mio signo a tal en 
testimonio de verdad. — Diego de Carvajal (Signo e rubrica). 



II. 

Ge:n^eral Pardon of the New Converts (p. 37). 

(Archive de Simancas,Patronato Real, Inquisicion,Legajo tinico, fol. 26). 

Don Fernando por la gracia de Dios Eey de Castilla, de Leon, 
de Aragon, de Sicilia, de Granada, de Toledo, de Valencia, de 
Galicia, de Mallorca, de Sevilla, de Cordoba, de Murcia, de Jaen, 
de los Algarbes, de Algecira, de Gibraltar, e de las islas de Cana- 
ria, Conde de Barcelona, Senor de Viscaya e de Molina, Duque 
de Atenas e de Neopatria, Conde de Rosellon e de Cerdania, 
Marques de Oristan e de Gociano, por facer bien e merced a los 
vecinos e moradores mis vasallos nuevamente convertidos de la 
moreria de esta grande e nombrada cibdad de Granada e de todas 
sus alquerias e acatando los buenos e leales servicios que vos habeis 
fecbo es mi merced e voluntad de vos remitir e perdonar todas las 
culpas e casos pasados fasta que vos convertistes a nuestra santa 
fe catolica e todo qualquier derecho que yo como vuestro Eey e 
senor natural habia e podia haber de justicia a vosotros e a vues- 
tras mugeres e fijos e a todos vuestros bienes por razon de las dichas 
culpas e casos fago merced por la presente e por su traslado signado 
de escribano publico sacado con autoridad de juez o alcalde por 
vos facer bien e merced e entendiendo ser ansi complidero a ser- 
vicio de Dios e mio vos remito e perdono todas las dichas culpas 
e excesos que cometistes fasta el dicho dia que vos convertistes a 
nuestra santa fe catolica como dicho es e todo el derecho e accion 
que por razon de las dichas culpas e excesos tengo a vuestras per- 
sonas e bienes e vos doy por libres e quitos de todo ello e mando 



APPENDIX. 407 

a los del mio consejo e oidores de la mi audiencia e chancilleria 
e al mi corregidor e a otras qualesquier mis justicias que son o 
f ueren desta nombrada e grand cibdad de Granada e a qualesquier 
dellos que por razon de las diclias culpas e excesos que cometistes 
fasta el dicho dia que vos convertistes a nuestra santa fe catolica 
non procedan contra vuestras personas e bienes antes vos guarden 
este mi perdon e remision que yo vos doy a todo e per todo segun 
que en este mi carta se contiene so aquellas penas e casos en que 
cahen e incurren los que pasan e quebrantan perdon e remision, 
dado e concedido por su Eey e senor natural. 

Dada en la dicha cibdad de Granada a veinte y seis dias del mes 
de Febrero, ano del nacimiertto de nuestro Salvador Jesucristo de 

mil e quinientos anos. 

Yo El Eey. 

Yo Fernando de Qafra secretario del Eey nuestro senor la fice 
escribir por su mandado. 

En las espaldas : Juan Fernandez de Fonteclia, chanciller. 



III. 

Ferdinand's Eeprooe to Inquisitoes (p. 59). 

(Archive de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libre 926, fel. 76). 

El Eey. 

Inquisidores : a nos a sido recorrido por parte del duque y 
duquesa de Cardona y del conde de Eibargoga castellano dam- 
posta y de otros que tienen vasallos moros en ese principado de 
Cataluna con grande quexa diciendo que algunos de los dichos 
moros sus vasallos son compelidos por vosotros y otras personas 
por via indirecta que se tornen cristianos y se bapticen no tenien- 
dolo ellos in devocion y que a causa que algunos de los otros moros 
dicen y amonestan a algunos que no se tornen cristianos y se les 



408 APPENDIX. 

impiden an sido presos por ese sancto oficio y se precede riguro- 
samente contra ellos excediendo en algo el termino del derecho 
con mucho escandalo de los dichos moros y dano de cuios son, 
por lo cual avemos sido suplicado fnese de nostra merced proveer 
y mandar que la dicha fuerza y capcion en los dichos moros no se 
faga aqui adelante y los moros que por la causa susodicha ban sido 
presos sean sueltos y puestos en su libertad, y porque nos parece 
que a ninguno se debe hacer fuerga para que se convierta a nuestra 
sancta fe catholica y sea baptizado pues dello no es Dios servido 
si no cuando la conversion viene de puro corazon y voluntad, havi- 
endo ragones persuasivas para ello y no violentas, ansi mesmo 
que no es ragon porque algunos moros ayan dicho o digan a otros 
simplemente que no se tornen cristianos que sean tomados presos 
si ya no lo an dicho o fecho de tai manera que por derecho deven 
ser presos y punidos por ese sancto oficio — Por ende encargamos 
vos y mandamos que de aqui adelante no fagais ni consintais que 
ningun moro de ese principado sea convertido ni baptizado por 
fuerga sino que el quiera ser cristiano de su mera voluntad y que 
si algunos moros teneis de presente presos por solo an dicho sim- 
plemente a otros que no se convirtiesen los solteys y pongais luego 
en su libertad, imbiando la pesquisa e ynformacion que contra 
ellos teneis al reverendo obispo de Vich nuestro confesor general 
inquisidor para que visto por el se os escriba lo que fuere justicia 
y que agora adelante no mandeis proceder ni procedais a capsion 
de moro alguno por la causa susodicha sino que primero recevida 
por vosotros informacion de lo que cada un moro abra dicho o 
fecho sobre la conversion de los dichos moros la ayais embiado al 
dicho obispo y general inquisidor y recevida su repuesta sobre 
ello y porque algunos de los dichos moros diz que S3 an ausentado 
de sus casas por temor que no se fagan cristianos por fuerga o que 
los tomen presos por lo que dicho es proveereis que luego vuelvan 
libremente asegurandolos de tal manera que sin recelo y temor de 
violencia alguna puedan volver y estar en sus casas, y no se faga 
lo contrario en alguna manera por quanto nos deseais servir. Dada 
en la ciudad de Cordova a cinco dias del mes de Octubre, ano de 
mill y quinientos y ocho. Yo el Eey.— Calcena Secretario.— 
Dirigitur Inquisitoribus Cathalonie, 



APPENDIX. 409 



IV. 



Letter of CardijSTAl Manrique to Charles V. Co:n^cern- 
ixG THE Ooerced Co:syerts of Valencia (p. 74). 

(Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicioiij Libro 4, fol. 97). 

Sacra Catolica magestad : Los inquisidores de Valencia me han 
escripto lo que creo vuestra alteza sabe como en tiempo de la 

Germania los moros de aquel Eelno 6 casi todos se tornaron cris- 
tianos y que las mesquitas fueron consagradas, y como despues de 
algund tiempo estos se volvieron a su secta y las iglesias que eran 
nuevamente reducidas a nuestra religion Cristiana se volvieron a 
facer sus templos e mezquitas e dicen que sobre esto tienen presos 
alguuas personas ansi mesmo mi informan como vuestra magestad 
hobo proveido en esta materia mandando al gobernador de Valen- 
cia que se juntase con dichos inquisidores de alii e congregasen 
personas doctas, teologos y juristas para que platicasen en ello, e 
que conforme a lo que hallasen que se debia de facer se proveyese. 
Visto todo esto yo loJbe comunicado con el Consejo y a nos pares- 
cido que por ser este caso general que no solamente toca a aquel- 
los infieles de nuestra santa fe catolica mas a todos los de estos 
Eeinos y tambien podria acaescer en casos que sucederan y por ser 
ansi mesmo materia de tanta sustancia y que tanto toca a nuestra 
relixion que seria bien que aquella congregacion que vuestra 
magestad manda que se haga en Valencia que yo la baga, jun- 
tando algunos de sus Consejos Eeales y otros teologos y juristas, 
porque por esta via ternia mas sustancia e autoridad e no sola- 
mente se platicaria en el articulo dicho mas tambien porque asi 
viene dependente de ello se hablaria e platicaria en los de Granada 
y en todos los otros que eran moros y se convertieron y darse ia 
en todo lo dicho tal orden, mediante Dios, qual conviniese al bien 
e salvacion de sus animas e aumento de nuestra Eeligion cristiana. 
Suplico a vuestra magestad tenga por bien que se tenga este modo 
porque se vuestra magestad no ha de venir aqui tan aina yo me 
iria a su corte e irian conmigo los de este Consejo de la sancta 
Inquisicion e alii se haria la congregacion, 6 si no mandandolo 
vuestra magestad a que los podria congregar vea vuestra magestad 



410 APPENDIX. 

lo que es servido que se haga, 6 agora sea aqui 6 en su corte pares- 
ceme que sera bien que vuestra magestad escriba a su gobernador 
de Valencia baciendole saber que la congregacion que mandaba se 
hiciese por el y por los inquisidores tenia determinado que yo la 
hiciese aca y que para esto que nombrasen algunos letrados teologos 
y juristas de aquella ciudad e reino, porque se hallasen en la platica 
de estas materias. Esto digo porque enviando de aquella tierra 
semej antes personas que hallandose en la dicba congregacion que- 
darian mejor satisfechos con lo que se determinase que-segun se 
dice como los caballeros resciben dano e detrimento en sus bienes e 
haciendas temporales favorescen a estos que se volvieron a su secta e 
para que no scan compelidos a que sean reducidos a nuestra religion 
cristiana alegan que se convertieron con miedo, asi que conviene 
que personas de aquella tierra se halien presentes en esta platica 
e yo invio a los inquisidores para que largamente me informen de 
como fue la dicba conversion, porque si intervino miedo sepamos 
de que calidad fue y modo, e porque vuestra magestad sepa lo que 
los inquisidores me escribieron por su mesma relacion ahi lo invio 
al fiscal para que sobre todo lo mande ver y proveer, y suplico a 
vuestra magestad que sea con brevedad que el caso lo requiere 
porque en verdad es casa de gran dolor ver que los que fueron 
reducidos y traidos a nuestro baptismo y a nuestra Igiesia se hayan 
ansi vuelto a su secta vana y los templos nuevamente fecbos igle- 
sias nuestras se hayan tornado templos a do se blasfema el nombre 
de Cristo y su honor y pesame en gran manera en que en tanto 
tiempo haya habido este dano, y ansi es necesario pues la cosa esta 
en tales terminos que mediante Dios vuestra magestad lo mande 
proveer y remediar y con todo la instancia que puedo se lo torno 
k suplicar. . . . 

De Burgos a veinte y tres de Enero de mil quinientos veinte y 
quatro anos. 

Humil siervo de vuestra magestad que sus muy reales manos y 

pies besa. 

Eli Aezobispo de Sevilla, 



APPENDIX. 411 



V, 



Informacio super Conversione Sarracenorum (p. 75). 

(From the Original in my possession). 

Commission from the Ikquisitor-General. 

Nos Don Alonso Manrrique por la divina miseracio Arzobispo 
de Sevilla del Consejo de sus Magestades Inquisidor apostolico 
general contra la heretica pravedad y apostasia en todos los sus 
Eeynos e Seiiorios hazemos saber a vos el Reverendo licenciado 
Joan de churruca chantre de Almeria Inquisidor contra la heretica 
pravedad en la Inquisicion del reyno de Valencia y el magistro 
doctor Andres palacio assessor en la dicha Inquisicion que nos 
havemos sido informado como al tiempo de la comocion desse 
reyno muchos moros se convertieron y recibieron agua de bau- 
tismo y las mezquitas se hicieron yglesias y despues todos o los 
mas dellos tornaron a vivir como moros y las yglesias a ser mez- 
qaitas como eran antes de su conversion, cosa por cierto de gran- 
dissimo dolor y meno^precio de nuestra santa religion cristiana, 
y venido esto a noticia del Emperador y Eey nuestro Senor su 
catholica magestad ha scrito a la serenissima reyna de Aragon 
lugartiniente general en esse dicho reyno que nombre personas 
ydoneas para que vengan a la Corte de su Magestad y se junten 
con otros letrados ante nos, e sabido lo que ha passado acerca de 
la dicha conversion se provea conforme a derecho lo que pareciere 
que mas cumpla al servicio de dios y al bien y augmento de nues- 
tra santa fe catholica. Por ende mandamos vos que lo mas presto 
que pudieredes recibays entera Informacion de todo lo que passo 
en la dicha conversion y de lo que despues han hecho los dichos 
moros bautizados y de las causas y razones pordonde ellos preti- 
enden que no son obligados a vivir como cristianos ni dexar las 
mezquitas que antes de su conversion tenian y de todo lo demas 
que convenga a la buen y sancta expedicion del negocio, y aquella 
recebida la traygays a nos vos el dicho assessor Palacio para que 
se vea en la dicha congregacion y se provea como dicho es, que 
si necesario es por la presente vos damos y cometemos cumplido 
poder para todo ello con todas sus incidencias y dependencias, 



412 APPENDIX. 

annexidades y connexidades. Datus en la ciudad de Burgos a xx 
dias del mes de hebrero del ano del nacimiento de nuestro Senor 
de mil y quinientos y veynte y quatro. 

A. HiSPALENS. 

De mandato reverendissimi Archiepiscopi Hispalens, Inq'^is gen- 
eralis. 

Jo. Garcia Sectius . 



Intereogatory. 



Las cosas de que se ha de tomar informacion sobre la conver- 
sion de los nuevamente convertidos de moros a nuestra sancta fe 
catkolica en el reyno de Valencia son las siguientes. 

I. Primeramente quanto tiempo ha que se convertieron y que 
f ue la causa de su conversion. 

II. Item si les fue hecha alguna fuerza y que fuerza fue, y quien 
la hizo, lo qual se inquira con mucha diiigencia para que entera- 
mente se sepa la verdad si hovo fuerza y que tal fue. 

III. Item si fueron amenazados por personas poderosas que les 
causasse justo temor para que se convertiessen a nuestra sancta fe 
Catholica, 

IV. Item si despues de convertidos permanecieron por algun 
tiempo en nuestra sancta fe Catholica y que tanto tiempo fue. 

V. Item si bautizaron sus hijos despues de su conversion y 
quanto tiempo estuvieron sin que la contradixessen. 

VI. Item si han si do induzidos por algunas personas para 
volver a sus herrores y declaren que personas eran. 

VII. Item si todos de cada lugar donde se bautizaron se con- 
vertieron a nuestra sancta fe catholica o quanto dellos fueron. 

VIII. Item quien fueron los principales movedores de la dicha 
conversion y que manera se tuvo en ella. 

IX. Item si las mezquitas que tenian los dichos nuevamente 
convertidos antes de su conversion se hizieron yglesias y si fueron 
benditas y si se celebraron en ellas los divines officios y si se 
enterraron en ellas como yglesias y si se confessaron los dichos 
convertidos y comulgaron y recibieron otros sacramentos y si se 
dixeron missas y los otros divinos officios en ellas. 

X. Item si despues denterrados algunos convertidos en las dichas 



APPENDIX. 413 

yglesias se han desenterrado algunos dellos y enterrado en otra 

parte y adonde se han enterrado. 

Despachose en Yalladolid a xiii de Setiembre de Mil D xxiiij 

anos. 

Jo. Garcia Sectius. 



Specimen of Testimony (p. 64). 
Precontentis loco die et anno. 

[In villa de Albayda, die decima septima novembris anno MD 
xxiiij.] Eadam die coram R*^^ domino Joanne de Churruca Inq'^^'" 
et magnifico Andrea de palacio assessore, assistentibus dominis 
Martino Sanchez et Marco Joanne de bas, vocatus per nuncium 
comparuit magnificus Galcerandus destanyo domizellus ville de 
Albayda habitans qui per dictos dominos, juramento mediante 
fait interrogatus super primo articulo E dixo que se acuerda que 
estando el Campo de Oriuela en la presente villa de Albayda, que 
entonces el visorey era en beniasar que a su parecer devia ser en el 
anyo D. xxj, estando este testigo retrahido en su possada en la pre- 
sente villa que no osava sallir palesamente porque no lo matassen 
vehia passar los moros del Condado de veinte en veinte y de cin- 
quenta en cinquenta que los trahian a babtizar a la yglesia los de 
la yglesia los quales mostravan que no yuan de buen grado sino 
forgados y por lo que tiene dicho no los vio baptizar ni este testigo 
fue a la yglesia y que la causa de la conversion destos crehe este 
testigo que fue por que hoyo dezir publicamente que fueron ciertos 
sindicos de la Jermania de Albayda con siete o ocho moros desta 
moreria e condado a Urgeles que entonces se dezia Capitan de la 
Jermania a pedirle si se podria scusar el babtismo destos moros 
e que les respondio que no podia bolver la bandera a Valencia 
hasta que todos los moros del Eeyno de Valencia fuessen cristi- 
anos y que con esta respuesta eran bueltos y lo havian dicho a los 
moros y que por esto crehe este testigo que esto fue la causa por 
salvar la vida, y acuerdasse que en el dicho tiempo hun moro de 
bufali por que dixo que no se queria hazer cristiano le quisieron 
matar los de la villa de Albayda y este testigo tuvo harto que 
hazer que no le matasse y al fin por salvar su vida se hizo cris- 
tiano. 



414 APPENDIX, 

Int'"' si estos que dize este testigo que los levavan forgados a 
hazerse cristianos si pudieran hir a bernia o a otra parte por 
salvar sus vidas. 

E dixo que lo tiene por muy impossible que se pudieran salvar. 

Super secundo articulo. E dixo que ya lo tiene dicho. 

Super tercio articulo. E dixo idem. 

Super iiij'' a^. E dixo que tanto tiempo quanto duro el temor 
que fueron dos meses desde Julio al Agosto perserveraron en vivir 
como cristianos y no mas. 

Super v" a*". E dixo que ha hoydo dezir publicamente por la 
villa que los hijos que les nascian entonces que los hazian bab- 
tizar. 

Super vi^ a^. E dixo que no lo sabe. 

Super vij*^ a^. E dixo idem. 

Super viij'' a''. E dixo que ya lo tiene dicho que los sindicos 
fueron los principal es promo vedores. 

Super viiij'' a"". E dixo que hoydo ha dezir que bendixieron las 
mesquitas pero no lo ha visto. 

Super x*' a*". E dixo que no lo sabe salvo que ha hoydo dezir 
que en la yglesia o cimenterio de la villa de Albayda enterraron 
dos tres de los nuevament convertidos que murieron. 

Int""' si alguna persona ha hablado antes o despues para que 
fuesse testigo en esta causa. E dixo que no. 

Generaliter fuit int""^ de odio, amore, timore, etc. Et ad omnia 
dixit non. 



APPENDIX. 415 



VI. 

Complaints of the Coetes of the Kingdoms of Aeagon, 
IN 1537, Concerning the Treatment of the 
MoRiscos, with Eeplies of the Inquisitor- 
General (pp. 98, 122). 

(Archive de Simancas, Patronato Eeal, Inquisicion, Legajo unico, 

fol. 38, 39). 

Eeyerendisimo y muy ilustre Senor. 

Su. magestad nos dexo mandado diesemos a v. s. reverendisima 
uoticia de todas los cosas tocantes a la sancta Inquisicion de que 
sintiesemos que los congregados en estas cortes se quexan, poni- 
endoles nombres de eceso o abuso que se hare contra el sancto 
officio por los inquisidores particulares que han exercido y exercen 
el dicho sancto officio en estos reynos de aragon y cataluna y 
Valencia los quales cumpliendo el mandamiento de su magestad 
nos ha parescido de dar por escrito a v. s. reverendisima porque 
mejor pueda deliberar^obre el los que son los siguientes — 

• -H- -H- ^ ^ ^ -X- 

Undezlmo se dize que a v. s. reverendisima es muy sabida 
la manera que se tubo en la conversion de los moros a la santa fe 
catolica y assi mesmo la poca o ninguna doctrina y ensenanga que 
despues aca de nuestra santa fe catolica se les ha dado ni yglesia 
que les hayanfecho en los lugares donde biven y que sin embargo 
de no haver sido doctrinados ni ensenados como dicho es se pro- 
cede contra ellos como contra hereges y que en eslo ay gran ex- 
ceso y que queriendolos castigar sin dotrinarlos primero hay poca 
necesidad de proceder contra ellos por Inquisicion pues a todos es 
notorio que estan y biven en la ynfidelidad que primero tenian. 

Duodecimo se dice que los dichos Inquisidores proceden a ocu- 
pacion de las tierras que tienen estos moriscos condenados por los 
senores de los lugares donde biven en tributo o censo o infiteosin 
y que ya por sus delitos devan ser presos y sus personas castigadas 
por la Inquisicion y tomadoles los bienes propios que tubiesen assi 
muebles como rayzes por que los que poseyeren por los titulos 



416 APPENDIX. 

sobredichos se deven volver a los primeros senores de quien los 
hobieron y fue la tierra por diverzas ragones que para ello hay. 

Trezeno se dize que ban tentado de ocupar por la dicba causa 
bienes feudales que los tales presos y condenados por los dichos 
delitos tenian deviendose de bolver a los senores del feudo. 

Catorzeno se dice que algunos poseedores de los bienes de los 
tales condenados que los hovieron y compraron dellos mayormente 
por titulo honeroso y con buena fe estando los tales condenados 
en possesion de catolicos cristianos e haviendo con la dicha buena 
fe hecho en los tales bienes muchas mejoras y reparos, los dicbos 
Inquisidores se los piden y demandan ante el juez del santo oficio. 



Lo que el Cardinal Inquisidor general responde a lo que su 
cesarea magestad le ha mandado comunicar de lo que sintiesen 
los senores de su real consejo que los congregados en estas cortes 
se que] an tocante al santo oficio de la inquisicion es lo que se 
sigue. ... 

Al 11. Que en esto de los nuevos convertidos se ha procedido 
y se procede con toda benignidad y templanga y que en lo demas 
con acuerdo y consulta de su cesarea magestad se proveera como 
convenga al servicio de dios y salvacion de las almas de los dichos 
convertidos. 

Al 12. Que hasta agora no se han ocupado tales bienes y quando 
se ofreciere tal caso se hara justicia. 

Al 13. Que si esto se entiende con los nuevamente convertidos 
tal cosa no se ha fecho y si se entiende generalmente con todos que 
se ha guardado y se guardara lo que de derecho esta proveydo. 

Al 14. Que si se dize con los nuevamente convertidos que tal 
cosa no se ha fecho y si generalmente que siempre se ha fecho y 
se hara justicia, y si se agraviare alguno ya tiene el remedio de 
apellacion y recurso al superior. 



APPENDIX. 417 



VII. 

Delegatio^^ by Iis^quisitoe-General Valdes of Power to 
Hear CoisrFESsio:NS (p. 102). 

(Archivo de Simancas, InquisicioD, Libro 4, fol. 262). 

Nos Don Fernando de Valdes, por divina miseracion arzobispo 
de Sevilla Inquisidor apostollco general contra la heretica pravedad 
y apostasia en los reinos y senorios de S. M., usando de la gracia 
J facultad que la felix recordacion del papa Paulo quarto nos con- 
cedio por virtud de su breve cuyo tenor es el que se sigue — Paulus 
Papa lY. etc. 

Confiando de la integridad, prudencia y recta conciencia del Sr. 
Don Francisco de Navarra, arzobispo de Valencia, damos poder y 
facultad a su senoria 6 a su oficial que presente es 6 por tiempo 
f uere en la dicha ciudad, siendo clerigo presbitero, para que pueda 
oir las conf esiones de los nuevos convertidos del reino de Valencia 
que ovieren cometido 6 hecho algunas zeremonias 6 ritos de moros 
6 cosas contra nuestra santa fe catolica que sean tales que se puedan 
provar en juicio, aunque hayan sido apostados 6 relapsos y admi- 
tillos a reconciliacion secreta, imponiendoles las penitencias que les 
pareciere, con que la dicha confesion y abjuracion se haya ante un 
notario del secreto de la Inquisicion 6 ante otro notario que tenga 
las qualidades necesarias, y la entregue a los reverendos inquisi- 
dores de aquella ciudad y reino el qual dicho poder y facultad y 
subdelegacion le dava y hacia por vertud del dicho breve de su 
Santidad supra scripto por el tiempo que fuere su voluntad. Dada 
en Madrid a 12 de Julio 1561. F. Hispalensis. Por mandado 
de su senoria ilustrisima, Pedro de Tapia, con seuales de los 
Senores del (/onsejo, Andres Perez, Don Eodrigo de Castro y 
Guzman. 



Don Fernando de Valdes por la divina miseracion arzobispo de 
Sevilla, inquisidor apostolico general contra la heretica pravedad 
en los reinos y senorios de su Magestad etc. Por quanto oy dia 
de la data de esta dimos poder y facultad al Senor arzobispo de 

27 



418 APPENDIX, 

Valencia 6 a su oficial para que puedan oir las confesiones de los 
nuevos convertidos de moros de la ciudad y reino de Valencia que 
ovieren cometido 6 hecho algunas ceremonias 6 ritos de moros que 
scan tales que se puedan provar en juicio j admitilles a reconcili- 
acion secreta imponiendoles las penitencias que les pareciere con 
que la dicha confesion se haga ante un notario del secreto de la 
Inquisicion y hecha se entregue a los reverendos inquisidores de 
la dicha ciudad por virtud del breve de su Santidad que en el 
dicho poder y facultad va inserto, damos poder al dicho senor 
arzobispo y a su oficial que es 6 por tiempo fuere para que a los 
que ovieren cometido los dichos delictos secretemente los pue- 
dan oir y absolver sacramentalmente y reconciliallos a nuestra 
sancta fe catolica impusiendoles las penitencias spirituales que 
les pareciere con que ayaa cometido los dichos delictos de man- 
nera que no se puedan probar en juicio y para ello les damos 
nuestro poder cumplido y cometemos nuestras veces. Dada en 
Madrid a 12 de Julio, 1561.— F. Hispalensis, Por mandado de su 
senoria ilustrisima, Pedro de Tapia, 



VIII. 

Cakdinal Manrique's Insteuctions to Calceka a^d 
Hako (pp. 142, 185). 

(Archive de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 77, fol. 228). 

Que si los rectores tienen emolumentos bastantes con que ellos 
se puedan mantener y sobre esto dar emolumentos a capellanes 
que residan en los lugares y a sacristanes que se les mande que 
asi se lo efectuen y si no los tuvieren que suplan lo que faltare 
con prelados y las otras personas eclesiasticas que llevan los diez- 
mos y primicias a cada uno segun la parte que lleva y lo que toca 
a los rectores se entiende por la vida de los que agora poseen las 



APPENDIX, 419 

rectorias y despues de sus vidas se guarde la instruccion que sobre 
esto se dara a ios subdelegados. 

Item que si Ios senores dotaren Ios beneficios que sean patrones 
de ellos y presenten las personas que ovieren de servir las Iglesias 
a Ios prelados para que les hagan colacion de ellos y en Ios lugares 
donde Ios senores no dotaren se provean Ios beneficios con Ios 
naturales del mismo lugar si Ios huviere y no habiendolos que 
sean de Ios lugares de la diocesis mas cercana y que se tenga en 
esto el modo que se tiene en nuestras Iglesias de Palencia y Burgos 
y para ello se baga bula apostolica. 

Item que con diligencia se provea que Ios clerigos que agora se 
prov^een sean tales quales conviene por tan grande necesidad como 
al presente bay. 

Item que Ios subdelegados con Ios ordinarios tasen y moderen 
la cantidad de Ios reditos que ba de tener cada beneficiado. 

Asi mismo que se procure que se pongan muy buenos sacris- 
tanes porque demas de lo que es necesario para la buena admin- 
istracion de la justicia y limpieza de las Iglesias convendra que 
fueren tales que pudiesen enseiiar la doctrina cristiana a Ios ninos 
de Ios pueblos y todo lo que es menester para su instruccion y 
con Ios subdelegados con Ios ordinarios tambien taxaran lo que 
se debe dar a Ios dichos sacristanes. 

Item que de las rentas de las [mezquitas ?] se de una parte que 
parezca suficiente para la fabrica de las Iglesias y la otra se de 
para la sustentacion y la otra se de para Ios rectores pues en el 
lugar donde el rector tiene suficiente para la sustentacion que 
todas las dicbas rentas de las [mesquitas?] sean para la fabrica 
de la Iglesia del dicbo lugar y para ornamentos y otras cosas 
necesarias del culto dinno y que esto se entienda sin perjuicio 
de Ios que fueron alfaquies si no que se les guarde en ello lo 
que se asento y otorgo en Toledo el ano de quinientos veinte y 
cinco. 

Item parece que es cosa muy necesaria que se provea de pre- 
dicatores para que prediquen y dotrinen a Ios dicbos nuevamente 
convertidos y que se platique de que seran proveidos para su 
sustentacion. 

Item ba parecido que para que todo lo susodicbo se pueda con- 
servar y aumentar se deve bacer un colegio para que sean ense- 
nados Ios ninos en las cosas de la dotrina y en religion y buena 
crianza porque de alii redundaria el fruto que se ba alcanzado en 



420 APPENDIX. 

otras partes donde se ha hecho y despues estos ninos podrian 
ensenar y dotrinar a sus padres y deudos y base de platicar en 
el modo como se efectuaria esto. 

Item que Su Magestad mande gaardar lo que se asento en Toledo 
con los dichos cristianos nuevos que serian tratados en todo como 
cristianos viejos. 

Asi mesmo procurareis con los ordinarios que administren y 
hagan administrar los santos sacramentos gratis 6 se moderen los 
derechos de manera que por no pagarlos no se escusen los nueva- 
mente convertidos de recibirlos. 

Item procurareis que no los apremien confiesen sino los primeros 
dias de pasqua y de la incarnacion y asuncion de nuestra senora y 
de todos Sanctos. 

Item procurareis con los ordinarios que en los matrimonios se 
moderen los derechos de manera que los convertidos no se quexen 
y si en esto no vinieren a lo razonable nos lo consultareis con 
vuestro parecer sobre ello. 

Despachada en la ciudad de Qaragoga a catorze dias del mes de 
Enero ano del nacimiento de nuestro Senor de mil quinientos 
treinta y quatro. 

A. Cahdinalis. 

J. Gaecia, secretarius. 



Otra instruccion. Demas de lo contenido en la instruccion 
general quando fueredes a los lugares de los senores donde hay 
nuevamente convertidos barrels informacion secretamente de los 
derechos que los dichos nuevamente convertidos solian pagar 
quando heran moros por respetos de ser vasallos moros y agora 
despues que son cristianos S3 los llevan y ban llevado sus Senores 
y de los agravios y tratamientos que se les bacen agora por sus 
senores como si fueren moros y hechas las dicbas informaciones 
con vuestra parecer y todo lo que sintieredes nos las embieis para 
que se provea lo que convenga y esto se ha de bacer solamente 
con parecer y consulta del Excelentisimo Seiior Duque. 

Despacbada en la ciudad de Qaragoga a catorze dias del mes de 
benero ano del nacimiento de nuestro Senor de mil quinientos 
treinta y quatro. 

A. Cardinalis. 

Joan Garcia, secretarius. 



APPENDIX. 421 



IX. 

Brief of Clement YII., February 28, 1597, Authorizing 
Absolution for Eelapse (p. 170). 

(Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 926, fol. 71. — Bulario de la 
Orden de Santiago, Libro lY., foL 128). 

Venerabili fratri Petro episcopo Cordubensi in Eegno Hispan- 
iarum general! Inquisitori 

Clemens Papa Octayus. 
Venerabilis frater saliitem et apostolicam benedictionem. 
Mh.il est quod magis deceat catholicos Eeges et Principes quam 
se profiteri verae fidei quam sancta Eomana Ecclesia omnium 
fidelium mater et magistra perpetuo docuit et docet atque hac 
una in re potissimum hujus sanctse Apostolicoe sedis in qua Deo 
auctore prsesidemus sollicitudinem adiuvare ut eadem fides catli- 
olica in eorum regnis et provinciis inviolata conservetur et quan- 
tum fieri potest divina adiutrice gratia propagetur. Quo nomine 
merito imprimis commendandus est charissimus in Christo filius 
noster Philippus Hispaniarum rex catholicus, cujus fidei zelus 
et insignis pietas cum multis aliis in rebus eminet tum valde 
etiam elucet in novorum conversorum qui ex Maurorum gente 
sunt animarum salute procuranda. Nam cum ex veteri calami- 
tate multi adhuc in Hispania sint ex ea natione homines et prse- 
sertim in regno Valentiae qui sacro baptismatis lavacro regenerali 
et Christianum nomen palam professi, animo tamen et secretioris 
vitae genere a pravis maiorum suorum institutis atque imitatione 
non discedunt et impios ac detestabiles Mahumetis errores et 
superstitiones observant, non cessat idem plus Eex omnem dili- 
gentiam adhibere omnique studio conari ut ijdem noviter conversi 
Christianam et catholicam fidem, omni impietate reiecta, vere 
atque ex animo complectantur. Ceterum cum ea quae hactenus 
adkibita sunt remedia, etiam auctoritate dictse sanctse Sedis Apos- 
tolicae et praesertim fe. re. Clementis VII., Pauli IIII., Pij IIII., 
Pi] v., Gregorij XIII. et Sixti V. Eomanorum Pontificum prae- 
decessorum nostrorum, vigore etiam sacrorum canonum et Apos- 
tolicarum constitutionum contra ejusmodi apostatas et fidei deser- 
tores mitigato, minus profecisse videantur, rursus quoque id nostras 



422 APPENDIX. 

Apostolicse auctoritatis adiumento expereri desiderat si forte cum 
eadem benignitate et lenitate eorum durities emolleri possit. 
Itaque desiderij tarn pij causas nobis accurate exponi curavit 
nobisque huoiiliter supplicavit ufc Fraternitati tuse earn facul- 
tatem benigne tribueremus quam opportunam esse et magis in 
Domino expedire censeremus. Nos autem, qui nihil ardentius 
optamus quam animas Christo Domino lucrari et errantes ad 
viam salutis atque ad salutarem poenitentiam reducere, eiusdem 
charissimi filij nostri Philippi Regis supplicationibus inclinati 
et novellas et teneras in fide plantas donee altiores in agro Domini 
radices agant et firmius coalescant benigne confovere atque exco- 
lere nee semper peccantes graviori poena aut acerbiori supplicio 
coercere^ sed ubi et quando pro animarum salute tempus et locus 
ac personarum ratio ita postulant mitiori etiam cultura lethales 
hujusmodi radices ac fibras extirpare atque eveilere cupientes, 
deque tua singulari prudentia ac in religionem et fidem Christi- 
anam zelo plurimum in Domino confisi, Tibi ut per te vel per 
alium seu alios inquisitorein seu inquisitores hsereticse pravitatis 
quem vel quos ad id specialiter duxeris deputari, adiunctis etiam 
dicti regni Arcbiepiscopo vel Episcopis dioecesanis sive eorum 
vicarijs seu officialibus in spiritualibus generalibus, vel ipsis recu- 
santibus etiam absque illis, omnes et quoscunque utriusque sexus 
filios, nepotes et alios descendentes ex Mauris seu e prsedicta secta 
Mahumetana ad fidem conversis in Regno ValentiEe prsedicto et 
quibuscunque ipsius Regni partibus et jurisdictione inquisitorum 
civitatum eiusque Regni ac in eis eorumque subjectis locis exis- 
tentes seu inhabitantes et commorantes cuiuscunque sint status 
ordinis et conditionis qui in apostasiam a Christi fide aut in alias 
hsereses vel errores contra fidem catbolicam quomodolibet lapsi aut 
etiam ssepius relapsi fuerint illasque et illos semel vel iterum aut 
etiam forsan pluries in iudicio generaliter vel specialiter abjura- 
verint et detestati fuerint, qui intra tempus seu tempora gratise ut 
vacant, vel terminum seu terminos abs te vel ab inquisitore sive in- 
quisitoribus locorum per te deputandis, praedictis publicis proposi- 
tis edictis, eorum arbitrio prsefixum seu prsefigendum coram Fra- 
ternitate tua vel inquisitore seu inquisitoribus deputatis ac ordina- 
rijs seu dioecesanis locorum prsedictis aut eorum aliquo sponte seu 
personaliter comparue) int vel se constituerint atque a fide aposta- 
siam, hsereses et errores prsedictos aliaque contra eandem fidem per 
eos eorum ve aliquem verbo, scripto vel facto aut alias quomodolibet 



APPENDIX. 423 

perpetrata crimina et excessus integre tain de se quam de alijs 
confess! fuerint atque habentes firmissimum propositum ab illis et 
alijs simiiibus in posteram abstinendi, de illis humiliter veniam 
petierint, si et postquam apostasiam, hsereses et errores huius- 
modi coram notario et testibus publice vel privatim prout Tibi 
vel inquisitor! aut inqnisitoribus deputatis et dioecesanis sen ordi- 
narijs prsedictis videbitur, detestati fuerint anatliematizaverint et 
abiuraverint, ac prsestito juramento proiniserint se talia deinceps 
non commissuros nee commitentibus consensuros neque opem, 
auxilium consilium vel favorem prsestituros tam ab his quam ab 
aliis simiiibus, ets! maiores et graviores sint, excessibus, etiam s! 
pluries in abiuratam apostasiam sive hsereses et errores relapsi 
tentijs censuris et poenis iniunctis inde eorum cuilibet juxta 
qualitatem excessuum prsedictorum ac pro modo culpse, tuo vel 
deputatorum inquisitoris sen inquisitorum et ordinariorum prse- 
fuerint, necnon ab excommunicatione alijsque ecclesiasticis sen- 
dictorum arbitrio, poenitentijs salutaribus non tamen pecuniarijs 
et alijs iniungendis, in forma ecclesiae consueta, ut sponte compa- 
rentes etiam si in indicijs in iudicio prseventi fuerint aut quomodo- 
libet inquisiti, non tamen qui condemnati aut detenti in carceribus 
reperiuntur, in utroque foro absolvere et liberare eosque ad uni- 
tatem et gremium sanctae matris ecclesise recipere et reconciliare, 
et quascunque etiam temporales et corporales perpetui carceris 
et immurationis ac traditionis sen relaxationis brachio saeculari 
faciendae et ultimi supplicii et confiscationis omnium bonorum 
perpetuseque infamise et inhabilitatis tam ipsorum quam filiorum 
nepotum et descendentium tam a jure quam a quibuscunque pro- 
vincialibus aut synodalibus aut etiam Apostolicis constitutionlbus 
et ordinationibus in quas quomodoiibet incurrerint inflictas et 
irrogatas seu infllgendas et irrogandas poenas gratiose remittere et 
condonare, omnemque notam et maculam contra eos eorumque 
filios et descendentes ex prsemissis insurgentem tollere et abolere 
ipsosque io pristinum statum et quoad bona temporalia restituere 
reponere et reintegrare cseteraque omnia et singula in prsemissis et 
circa ea necessaria et quomodoiibet opportuna et quae notam et ex- 
pressionem exigerent magis specialem et sub general! commissione 
non veniunt, facere, gerere, mandare et exequi libere et licite 
possis et valeas seu inquisitores deputandi, et dioecesani praedict 
possint et valeant plenam, liberam et omnimodam facultatem et 
potestatem ad quadrennium dumtaxat a data praesentium numer- 



424 APPENDIX, 

andum et non ulterius duraturam auctoritate Apostolica tenore 
prsesentium concedimus et impertimur praesentibus Uteris et facul- 
tatibus Tibi ac inquisitori seu inquisitoribus per te ut prsefertur 
deputandis locoruuiqae ordinarijs per ea attributis, post dictum 
quadrennium minime valituris. Nonobstantibus constitutionibus 
et ordinationibus Apostolicis et legibus etiam imperialibus sive 
praedictorum regaorum et quarumcunque civitatum et locorum 
etiam municipalibus ac in generalibus, provincialibus aut syno- 
dalibus consilijs editis aut prsedicti officii sanctse inquisitionis in 
quolibet ex prsedictis locis instituti etiam iuramento, confirmatione 
Apostolica vel quavis firmitate alia roboratis, statutis et consue- 
dinibus privilegijs quoque indultis et iiteris Apostolicis quomodo- 
libet concessis, approbatis et innovatis. Quibus omnibus illorum 
tenores pro expressis habentes hoc vice duntaxat specialiter et ex- 
presse derogamus cseterisque contrarijs quibuscumque. Datum 
Romse apud Sanctum Petrum sub annulo Piscatoris, die ultimo 
Februarij MDLXXXXVII. Pontificatus Nostri anno sexto. — 
Marcus Vestrius Barbianus. 



X 



Report of Inquisition of Valencia on Result of the 
Edict of Grace of 1599 (p. 173). 

(Archivo Historico Nacional, Inquisicion de Valencia, Legajo 5, 

fol. 298). 

Senor : — A los 21 del presente el Virrey desta ciudad embio a 
este santo officio dos cartas de Vuestra magestad, sus fechas de 
24 y 27 de Julio proxime pasado, por las quales Vuestra magestad 
nos manda demos aviso a Vuestra magestad con mucha particu- 
laridad y brevedad del fruto que ha hecho el Edicto de gracia que 
se concedio a los nuevamente convertidos deste Reyno y del que 
se puede sperar y se ha seguido de las diligencias que se ban ydo 



APPENDIX, 4,2b 

haziendo para que mejor fuesen instruydos en nuestra santa fe y 
la profesasen perfectamente y de lo que mas pareeiese se podria 
pedir a su santidad y mas nos occuriese digno de consideracion 
para este fin. 

En ano y medio que duro el edicto de gracia y prorrogacion 
della la gosaron solo treze haziendo confessiones tan fictas y 
simuladas y encubriendo tanto los conplices que antes merescian 
ser condenados que absueltos por elio, y destos treze algunos esta- 
van ya testificados en este santo officio de suerte que se entendio" 
que mas por temor de la testificacion que por convertirse gosaron 
de la gracia, y todos en general en lugar de enmienda la tomaron 
por occasion para delinquir con mas libertad y escandalo y ayu- 
naran su ayuna del Ramadan toda la luna que cayo por quaresma 
en tanta publicidad que todos los christianos viejos chicos y 
grandes lo vieron y notaron, porque en todo el dia en sus casas 
no salia humo de los ximeneas ni havia rastro de encenderse 
lumbre ni guisarse de comer hasta el caber del sol y todos andavan 
derramados de dia por los campos, calles y plagas, y al salir de la 
estrella se recogian a cenar sin que pareeiese ninguno : y muy de 
atras se tiene experiencia en este santo officio y al presente mayor 
que nunca por los muchos exemplares que en el ay de que muy 
pocos 6 ninguno de quantos se ha E-econciliado dizen enteramente 
la verdad ni se convierten de coracon ; y los senores cuyos vasallos 
son y otras personas graves y fidedignas y los curas de sus lugares 
y todos los que los tratan dizen y certifican que todos son y seran 
moros se dios nuestro senor no usa con ellos de particular miseri- 
cordia y les alumbra el entendimiento para que dexen de serlo y 
que ni professan cosa de nuestra santa fe ni quieren ser instruydos 
en ello, ni van a missa sino es por fuerga y por temor de la pena 
que les Uevan sino \an y quando estan en la yglesia oyendola es 
con mucho desacato y menosprecio y volviendo los ojos y cabega 
a otras partes al tiempo de la elevacion del santissimo Sacramento 
por no verle y asi por estos efectos sacamos que de la gracia y 
misericordia que Vuestra mages tad como tan christianissimo a 
sido servido de usar con ellos procurando su conversion y no ha 
Resultado ni se spera Resultara de su parte buen fruto sino el 
dicho de quererla y pedirla para tener occasion de delinquir con 
mas libertad y sin temor al castigo y al fin el que haze ellos el 
santo officio de la Inquisicion ya que no les aprovecha para Ee- 
duzirlos aprovechales para que se abstengan de vivir en su secta 



426 APPENDIX, 

con tanta publicidad y scandalo y para que no danen como podrian 
danar a otros christianos si assi la professasen y usasen. Guarde 
y prospere nuestro seiior a Vueslra magestad por muy largos anos 
como para bien de la christiandad y exaltacion de su santa fe es 
necessario. De Valencia y de agosto 22, 1601. 

El Doctor Pedro cifontes de loaste. 
El Licenciado Pedro serraro de mieres. 
El Licenciado Antonio canseco de quinones. 



XI. 

Eepoet of Inquisition on the Moriscos of Granada, 
1526-1561 (p. 215). 

(ArcM YD de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 926, fol. 80). 

Memorial de lo que resulta de las escrituras y papeles que estan 

en el Consejo de la General Inquisicion tocantes a la Inquisicion 

del Eeino de Granada y a los nuevamente convertidos del — es lo 

siguiente. 

Alio de 1526. 

En el ano de 1526 su Mag^ con parecer de una congregacion de 
prelados y otras personas del Consejo real y del Consejo de In- 
quisicion que se hizo en la ciudad de Granada, mando poner la 
Inquisicion en aquel Reino, y al tiempo que se puzo hizo S. M. 
merced a todos los moriscos de los bienes que por delito de heregia 
y apostasia que fasta entonces avian cometldo tenian perdidos y 
conforme a derecho ]es estavan confiscados y se les hizo perdon 
general de todas las otras penas de carcel y cadahalso y sanbenito 
y la dicha congregacion ordeno ciertos capitulos tocantes a la 
buena gobernacion de los moriscos del diclio reino quanto al 
hablar y vestir y otras cosas y ciertas instrucciones y capitulos de 
cosas que el arzobispo de Granada avia de mandar y proveer. 



APPENDIX, 427 

Despues de lo qual, pasado el termino de gracia, a los moriscos 
que fueron presos y declarados por hereges en algunos anos no se 
les tomaron sus bienes sino que se les mandaba que pagasen 
alguna cantidad y a la pagar se les daba algun tiempo porque sin 
dificultad y trabajo la pagasen. 

En el ano de 1532 el marques de mondejar escrivio a S. M. una 
carta por la qual dice que la inquisicion se avia puesto en aquel 
Reyno contra los confesses y contra ellos no se hazia nada porque 
no se hallava cosa ninguna contra ellos y que S. M. mandase que 
por estonces no se procediese contra ellos. 

El consejo de Inquisicion informo a S. M. cerca de lo que el 
marques decia en su carta que especial que hablaba como muy 
prevenido e ymportunado y por entonces no se hablo mas en ello. 

El ano de 1537 se dieron ciertos capitulos por parte de los 
moriscos del dicho reyno por los quales entre otras cosas pedian 
perdon de todos los delitos que fasta estonces oviesen cometido, 
y que de alii adelante no se les confiscasen los bienes ni se les 
impussiesen penas pecuniarias y que se podria dar orden como el 
oficio de la sancta ynquislcion se sustentase. 

El Consejo de inquisicion respondio a los dichos capitulos en 
efecto que no era justo que se quitase la confiscacion de los bienes 
ni los penitencias pecuniarias por ser penas estatuidas por los 
sacros canones y por las leyes imperiales y por las leyes destos 
reynos y que si el perdon de los delitos por ellos fasta estonces 
cometidos pareciese que lo pedian con deseo de reducirse a nuestra 
santa fe catholica y de salvar sus anymas y no fingida ni simul- 
adamente que se les podria conceder un termino de gracia dentro 
del qual diesen sus confesiones de los delitos pasados enteramente 
y por escrito ante los ynquisidores y que todos los que dentro del 
dicho termino veniesen a confesar en la manera dicha fuesen 
absueltos de sus delitos, y con esta respuesta del Consejo por 
entonces no se hablo mas en ello. 

Despues en el ano de 1539 en Toledo por parte de los moriscos 
del dicho reino se dieron otros capitulos y el marques de mondejar 
escrivio en su favor a S. M. y en ellos entre otras cosas pidieron 
las dos susodichas que antes en el ano de mil y quinientos y treinta 
y siete avian pedido, la una perdon general de todo lo pasado sin 
ninguna condicion de confesion ni otra cosa, la otra que los que 
dellos fuessen condenados a muerte y habito de penitencia por el 
delicto y crimen de heregia no perdiesen sus bienes ni les pudiesen 



428 APPENDIX. 

ser tornados por via de confiscacion ni por via de composicion ni 
por via de alimentos excesivos, y su Mag^ mando juntar los pre- 
lados del reino de Granada y al obispo de mondonedo y a otras 
personas del Consejo Real y consejo de inquisicion y despues de 
haver visto los dichos capitulos y platicado sobre ellos toda la 
dicha congregacion en conformidad acordaron y fueron de parecer 
que el perdon general en la manera que lo pedian no se les podia 
ni devia conceder, mas que siendo S. M. servido que se usase con 
ellos de misericordia, puesto que se les avian concedido dos termi- 
nos de gracia, por algunos justos respectos y consideraciones se les 
podria conceder de nuevo otro termino de gracia dentro del qual 
los que veniessen a confesar sus delitos y errores enteramente y 
diesen sus confesiones por escrito ante los ynquisidores fuesen 
recebidos al gremio e union de la santa madre iglesia y fuesen 
absueltos en forma sin con6scacion de bienes ni carcel ni habito 
sino en penitencias espirituales, y que no se les devia quitar la 
confiscacion de los bienes y que cerca della se devia guardar la 
disposicion del derecho, y visto lo que acordo la dicha congrega- 
cion por entonces no se hablo mas en lo contenido en los dichos 
capitulos y peticiones de los dichos moriscos. 

Despues, en el ano de 1543, queriendo los moriscos del dicho 
reyno de Granada tornar a pedir lo que diversas veces se les avia 
denegado se concertaron y obligaron que darian a christoval mexia 
vecino de Ciudad Real, hermano de fray Pedro de soto que enton- 
ces era confesor del emperador, seis o siete mil ducados en caso 
que se les concediese lo que antes el ano mill quinientos y treinta y 
siete y el ano de mill y quinientos y treinta y nueve avian pedido 
y ofrecieron al marques de mondejar veinte mill ducados porque 
los favoreciese e intercediese con S. M. para que consiguiesen lo 
que pedian, y con esto tornaron a pedir lo que antes avian pedido 
el ano de mill y quinientos y treinta y siete y el ano de mill y 
quinientos y treinta y nueve, en especial que a los moriscos de 
aquel reino se les concediese perdon general de todos los delitos 
e crimenes de heregia que fasta estonces oviesen cometido sin 
que precediese confesion ni reconciliacion y que no se les con- 
fiscase los bienes de alii adelaute ni se les echasen penas pecuni- 
arias, y el cardenal tavera inquisidor general y el consejo de inqui- 
sicion respondieron que aquello mesmo se avia pedido el ano de 
mill y quinientos y treiuta y nueve y la congregacion que sobre 
ello se avia tenido en toledo de prelados e otras personas del con- 



APPENDIX, 429 

sejo real y el consejo de inquisicion avian acordado y determinado 
que no era cosa justa que se les quitase la confiscacion ne se les 
podia ni devia conceder perdon de los delictos que oviesen come- 
tido fasta aquel tiempo sin confesion mas que se les podria con- 
ceder edicto sin gracia para los que dentro de cierto termino 
viniese a se confesar los delictos de heregia y apostasia que ovi- 
esen cometido y lo que supiesen de otros no se les confiscasen sus 
bienes y fuesen absueltos de sus culpas sin salir a cadahalso ni 
carcel ni sanbenito sino solamente con penitencias espirituales, y 
esta respuesta que dieron el cardenal tavera inquisidor general 
y el consejo de inquisicion parece que fue mostrada al marques 
de mondejar el qual replico y dixo que los moriscos de aquel reino 
no se satisfarian con lo que se les podia conceder conforme al 
parecer del inquisidor general y del consejo de inquisicion, porque 
dando las confesiones ante los inquisidores por escrito quedarian 
a peligro de ser relapsos y querian mas estar en lo aventura de lo 
que les podia suceder y que si para lo que pedian fuese necesario 
se podria traer facultad o aprobacion de nuestro muy sancto Padre 
y que la confiscacion de los bienes se les podia quitar pues S. M. 
podia hacer merced dellos y la hazia a quien era servido, y despues 
a 27 de Octubre del ano de mill y quinientos y quarenta y tres S. 
M. imperial escribio de davenes a su magestad rreal y al inquisidor 
general y al consejo de inquisicion que lo ha via mandado ver todo 
y que comunicado con personas de letras y consciencia avia pare- 
cido que se les podia conceder a los moriscos del dicho reino de 
Granada perdon general en lo pasado sin que precediere confesion 
ni reconciliacion y que los bienes no se les confiscasen en lo de 
adelante por tiempo de veynte y cinco o treinta anos, y tambien 
escrivio al marques de mondejar otra carta de davenes a veynte 
y siete de Octubre de quinientos y quarenta y tres por la qual le 
decia que le agradecia y se tenia por servido de lo que en este 
negocio de los moriscos avia fecho. el cardenal tavera inquisidor 
general y el consejo de inquisicion tornaron a responder a su Mag*^ 
despues de aver visto su determinacion quanto al perdon general 
de lo pasado en efecto lo mismo que antes avian dicho ydado 
por su parecer y que les parecia que seria harto pequeno servicio 
que los dichos nuevatnente convertidos sirviesen a su magestad 
con los ciento y veinte mil ducados por su parte ofrecidos con 
que se les hiciese remision general de todos los delitos por ellos 
cometidos fasta estonces confesandolos por escrito ante los inquisi- 



430 APPENDIX, 

dores o ante las personas por ellos deputadas como se requeria para 
la salvacion de sus animas y que fiiesen por ellos absueltos sin 
imponerles pena alguna temporal y remitiendoles todas las otras 
del derecho y la confiscacion de los bienes por los delitos hasta 
estonces cometidos. 

Y quanto a darles termino de veyinte y cinco o treinta aiios para 
que en el dicho tiempo no pudiesen ser confiscados sus bienes 
aunque tornasen a cometer delictos de heregia o apostasia les 
parecia que no le podrian aconsejar a S. M. con ^eguridad de 
conciencia porque las disposiciones cauonicas repugnaban mueho 
a la tal impunidad porque della se seguiria ocasion y atrevimiento 
para que ellos y todos sus hijos sin temor fuesen moros teniendo 
segura la vida y no aviendo confiscacion de bienes, mas porque 
deseaba que S. M. fuese servido en todo lo que se pudiese hazer 
con conciencia les parecia que seria harta piedad que S. M. les 
hiciese merced que por el dicho tiempo no se les confiscasen sino 
la mitad de los bienes, aplicando la otra mitad de que se les hiciese 
remision a los hijos y descendientes catholicos porque ellos tuvi- 
esen algun temor y los hijos se animasen a ser buenos cristianos y 
que tenian por cierto que dando a entender las personas que inter- 
viniesen en esto a los dichos moriscos la gran merced y piedad de 
que S. M. en esto usase con ellos y que en efecto se les concedia 
quasi todo lo que habian pedido que ellos se satisfarian, lo qual 
parece que se mostro al marques de mondejar y torno a replicar 
a esto diciendo que no se satisfarian los moriscos de aquel Reiuo. 
Despues de aver visto S. M. lo susodicho escrivio otra vez S. M. 
al inquisidor general y al consejo de inquisicion de metz a seis de 
Julio de mil y quinientos y quarenta y cuatro diciendo que ya 
se avia resolvido en que se ficiese conforme a lo que antes avia 
escrito de davanes y que a don Juan de vega embajador que 
entonces era en Eoma se avia escrito que entendiese en despachar 
la bula que fuese necesaria para que se concluyese y pusiese en 
ejecucion, y Juan de vega despacho una bula cuyo traslado esta 
fol. 179 y la original tiene el seiior arzobispo de Sevilla inquisidor 
general, la qual con un memorial de la dificultad que sobre ello 
se puso en E-oma cuyo traslado esta fol. 178, fue dado al senor 
arzobispo de sevilla por mandado del comendador mayor de leon 
covos y la bulla viene cometida al inquisidor general que es o 
fuere y a los inquisidores, que es muy diferente de lo que se pre- 
tendia por parte de los moriscos. 



APPENDIX, 431 

En aquel ano de mil y quinientos 7 quarenta y quatro un morisco 
mudejar que se decia Antonio Serrano dyo aviso al senor Inquisi- 
dor general que los moriscos de aquel reino de Granada holgarian 
de poner en razon los capitulos que avian dado y se contentarian 
con que se les concediesse lo que fuesse justo y harian un largo 
servicio a S. M. e insistio que se cometiese a alguna persona para 
que tratasen dello, y el inquisidor general escrivio a Diego de 
Deza obispo de canaria, oydor que entonces era de la real audi- 
encia de Granada, para que se informase si era verdad lo que decia 
el dicho Antonio Serrano y comunicado y tratado con los princi- 
pales moriscos de aquella ciudad algunos dellos dixeron que que- 
rian pedir licencia al conde de tendilla para tratar y hablar en 
ello y se la pidieron y despues liablaron y comunicaron los dichos 
moriscos con el dicho diego de deza y le dixeron que holgarian 
que por mano del inquisidor general y del consejo de la inquisi- 
cion se les hiciese la merced y pondrian en razon lo que antes 
tenian pedido y se contentarian con lo que fuere justo y servirian 
a S. M. con doscientos mil ducados y como el conde de tendilla 
vio que tratava dello un francisco martinez muley ciego y otros 
amigos y servidores del marques de mondejar y conde de tendilla 
y de su opinion procuraron de estorbar a los moriscos de aquella 
ciudad que no trataserudello sino que querian lo que el marques de 
mondejar fiziese y el conde de tendilla envio a Uamar a muchos de 
aquella nacion y les dixo palabras muy asperas y a manera de 
amenazas poniendoles delante la necesidad que del tenian y que el se 
quedava alii y el oidor diego de de§a que de ello trataba se iria otro 
dia y que ya el tenia el despacho que S. M. avia fecho la merced 
al marques su padre de concederle los capitulos que avia dado 
muy cumplidamente por lo qual no se tomo la resolucion en lo 
que pedian y pretendian el dicho serrano y los otros moriscos. 

Despues en el ano pasado de mil y quinientos y cincuenta y 
cinco el dicho conde de tendilla trato con los convertidos de 
moros de aquel reino de granada de procurarles que su santidad 
permitiese que confesando los delitos de heregia y apostasia que 
oviesen cometido a los confesores que ellos eligiesen fuesen ab- 
sueltos sin otra solenidad ni pena y que S. M. les hiciese gracia 
de los bienes que en qualquiera manera oviesen perdido por los 
dichos delitos de heregia y apostasia y que despues de la dicha 
remision y gracia por espacio de quarenta alios, aunque cometiesen 
delitos de heregia y apostasia e hiciesen ceremonias de moros no 



432 APPENDIX, 

les fuesen confiscados los bienes ni el sancto oficio de la iDquisi- 
cion se entrometiese en sus causas, y aviendo tratado esto envio 
personas por todas las ciudades villas y lugares de aquel reino de 
granada a hacer saber a todos los convertidos lo que cerca desto 
se avia tratado y platicado y a darles a entender quanto les im- 
portaba y a persaadirles que ofreciese cada uno la cantidad de 
dineros segun su posibilidad asi para que se hiciese un buen ser- 
vicio a su magestad como para gratificar a las personas que en 
ellos entendiesen y a los que intercediesen con su santidad y con 
su mag"^ y el dicho conde les dio instruccion para ello firmada de 
su nombre y las personas que envio fueron por el reino a todos los 
pueblos con la dicha negociacion con escandalo y mal exemplo y 
hicieron algunas estorsiones y malos tratamientos a los que no les 
parecia bien, de lo qual algunos prelados de aquel reino escanda- 
lizados de lo que se hacia dieron noticia al inquisidor general y 
los inquisidores de granada recibieron informacion dello y proce- 
dieron contra los culpados, y el inquisidor general y el consejo de 
inquisicion escribieron a sus magestades sobre ello y su magestad 
real les respondio y el conde de tendilla tambien escribio a su 
magestad y le envio una relacion de lo que dice avia pasado en 
este negocio tocante a los moriscos de granada y torno a insistir 
y pedir que se les conceda perdon general de lo pasado y que no 
se les confisquen los bienes ni se les echen penas pecuniarias en 
lo porvenir y alega causas e razones para lo justificar y el senor 
arzobispo ordeno una respuesta a lo qae decia el conde de tendilla 
respondiendo a cada capitulo cuyo traslado esta fol. 181 lo qual su 
magesta real lo remitio al inquisidor general y al consejo de inquisi- 
cion y les escribio de bruselas a once de mayo de mil y quinientos 
. . . . tanto lo uno y lo otro le informasen particularmente lo 
que sobre todo les pareciese y a esto se respondio a su magestad 
por el reverendo senor inquisidor general y el consejo entre otras 
cosas que se les escribieron a cinco de diciembre de mil y quini- 
entos y cincuenta y seis que se entenderia en ello como S. M. lo 
mandaba y por la consulta que se le haria veria S. M. que lo que 
en ello avian ynformado era muy al reves de lo que avia pasado. 

Despues en el ano de mill y quinientos y cinquenta y ocho los 
moriscos del dicho reino de Granada enviaron sus solicitadores a 
flandes adonde estaba su Mag^ real los quales le dieron memori- 
als en que en effecto supplicavan y pedian lo que las otras veces 
antes tenian pedido que se les hiciese perdon general de los de- 



APPENDIX. 433 

lictos passados con que se confiesen a los confessores y que de alii 
adeiante no se les confisquen los bienes y en estos memoriales 
piden otras cosas muy exorbitantes como son que aya carceles 
publicas y que se les de los nombres de los testigos y que cuando 
pecaren en sus errores no se proceda contra ellos por rigor sine 
por via de doctrina y quexanse que el marques de mondejar y el 
conde de tendilla los an traido en palabras y que el dicho conde 
les dixo y certifico que el tenia el despacho della en su area y ofre- 
cieron haziendoseles merced de lo que en sus memoriales pedian 
que servirian a S. M. con cien mill ducados por una vez y que 
darian tres mill ducados de renta en cada un ano para siempre 
jamas para la sustentacion del santo officio. Su Mag*^ en consulta 
proveyo que por ser negocio de tanta importancia y que conviene 
mirarse mucho en ello se escriviese a los del consejo de la inqui- 
sicion que tornase a ver y tratar lo que antes de agora se pidio 
cerca desto y lo que al presente de nuevo pedian los moriscos que 
avian ydo a flandes y con comunicacion de las personas que S. M. 
mando que entendiesen en ello y vistos los pareceres que sobre ello 
ban dado lo toviesen apuntado tratato y platicado para que venido 
S. M. a estos reynos lo pudiese con brevedad oyr y ver y proveer 
como mas conviniese al servicio de Dios y salvacion de las animas 
de los dicbos nuevameute convertidos, y conforme a lo susodicbo 
que se decreto, su Magestad escrivio al consejo de inquisicion y le 
embio el Memorial que por parte de los dicbos moriscos se le avia 
dado en flandes y despues de lo aver recibido por parte de los 
dicbos moriscos se pidio al reverendo Senor Inquisidor general y 
al consejo de inquisicion que se les diese licencia para que se pudi- 
esen juntar los moriscos de aquel reino de Granada para tratar lo 
que tocava al dicbo negocio y otorgar poderes para que por ellos 
los pudiesen obligar y pidieron una minuta de lo que se avia de 
contener en el poder y dioseles licencia para que en presencia del 
arzobispo de granada y del presidente y los oydores licenciados 
salas y arana y de uno de los inquisidores se juntasen a tratar del 
negocio, e dioseles una minuta del poder y sobre ello se les escrivio 
a los dicbos arzobispo y presidente e oydores e inquisid3r, e los 
dicbos moriscos se juntaron e se otorgaron los poderes aunque no 
estan en estos papeles y el arcobispo de granada escrivio que no 
convenia que se les quitase la confiscacion de los bienes y despues 
cuando estuvo en esta corte dio sobre ello capitulos a S, M. los cuales 
se remitieron al consejo de inquisicion. Despues de aver pasado 

28 



434 APPENDIX. 

todo lo susodicho por parte de los dichos moriscos de granada se 
ban presentado muchas peticiones con que suplican a su magestad 
les haga la merced que tienen pedida pues se concedio a los moris- 
cos de valladolid y de otras partes y dizen que en ellos ay mayor 
razon, y al presente estan en esta corte ciertos moriscos de granada 
procurandolo y solicitandolo para que su magestad les Uaga la 
merced que tantas veces ban supplicado y pedido y agora suplican 
y piden y por la ultima peticion dan a entender que se contentaran 
con que se les haga la merced que se hizo a los moriscos de aragon 
y de valladolid la qual presentaron a 12 de margo 1560, tambien 
presentaron otra peticion a 20 de febrero 1560 en que pidieron no 
se vendiesen los bienes que fuesen confiscados en el auto que ya 
estava publicado ni los que estavan por vender de los otros autos 
de antes por la paga de la farda y por la situacion de lo que se ha 
de dar para la paga del salario de los inquisidores y officiales que 
se ba de cargar tambien sobre aquellos bienes. 

En 29 de Octubre de 1561 dieron otra peticion por la qua! dizen 
que piden lo que por otras antes desta tienen pedido y suplicado 
attento lo mucbo que ban gastado en prosecucion deste negocio, 
asi en dar los poderes como en las ydas y venidas que ban hecbo 
en flandes y en esta corte. 



XII. 

Moorish Ballad of 1568, Peior to the Eebellio:n^ of 
Grakada^ (p. 234). 

Let the God of love and mercy's name begin and end our theme ; 
Sovereign He o'er all the nations, of all things the Judge Supreme. 
He who gave the book of wisdom, He who made His image, man, 
He chastiseth, He forgiveth. He who framed creation's plan. 



^ By Mohammad ben Mohammad ahen Daud, the chief agitator in 
the movements which led to the rising. — Cartulario de Alonzo del Cas- 
tillo (Memorial Historico espanol, 1852, Tom. III. p. 41). 



APPENDIX. 435 

He the One sole God of Heaven, He the One sole God of earth, 
He who guards us and supports us. He from whom all things had 

birth ; 
He who never had beginning, Lord of heaven's loftiest throne, 
He whose providence guides all things, subject to His will alone. 

He who gave us Holy Scripture, who made Adam, and who planned 
Man's salvation. He who gives their strength to nations from His 

hand ; 
He who raised the Saints and Prophets, ending with Mahoun the 

greatest — 
Praise the One sole God of Heaven, with all His Saints, from first 

to latest ! 

Listen; while I tell the story of sad Andalusia's fate — 
Peerless once and world-renowned in all that makes a nation great ; 
Prostrate now and compassed round by heretics with cruel force — 
We, her sons, like driven sheep, or horseman on unbridled horse. 

Torture is our daily portion, subtle craft our sole resource. 
Till we welcome death to free us from a fate that's ever worse. 
They have set the Jews^to watch us, Jews that know nor truth nor 

faith, 
Every day some new device they frame to work us further scaith. 

We are forced to worship with them in their Christian rites unclean? 
To adore their painted idols, mockery of the Great Unseen. 
No one dares to make remonstrance, no one dares to speak a word ; 
Who can tell the anguish wrought on us, the faithful of the Lord ? 

When the bell tolls, we must gather to adore the image foul ; 
In the church the preacher rises, harsh-voiced as a screaming owl. 
He the w^ine and pork invoketh, and the Mass is wrought with 

wine ; 
Falsely humble, he proclaimeth that. this is the Law divine. 

Yet the holiest of their shavelings nothing knows of right or wrong, 
And they bow before their idols, shameless in the shameless throng. 
Then the priest ascends the altar, holding up a cake of bread. 
And the people strike their bosoms as the worthless Mass is said. 



436 APPENDIX. 

All our names are set in writing, young and old are summoned all ; 
Every four months the official makes on all suspect his call. 
Each of us must show his permit, or must pay his silver o'er, 
As with inkhorn, pen, and paper, on he goes from door to door. 
Dead or living, each must pay it ; young or old, or rich or poor ; 
God help him who cannot do it, pains untold he must endure ! 

They have framed a false religion ; idols sitting they adore ; 
Seven weeks fast they, like the oxen who at noon>tide eat the more. 
In the priest and the confession they their baseless law fulfil. 
And we, too, must feign conversion, lest they work us cruel ill. 

Albotado and Horozco^ shear us like a flock of sheep, 
Cruel judges and unsparing, who their tireless vigils keep. 
And whoever praises God into destruction's net they sweep. 
Vain were hiding, vain were flight, when once the spies are on his 

track. 
Should he gain a thousand leagues, they follow him and bring him 

back. 

In their hideous gaols they throw him, every hour fresh terrors 

weave, 
From his ancient faith to tear him, as they cry to him " Believe ! " 
And the poor wretch, weeping, wanders on from hopeless thought 

to thought. 
Like a swimmer in mid ocean, by the blinding tempest caught. 

Long they keep him wasting, rotting, in the dungeon foul and 

black, 
Then they torture him until his limbs are broken on the rack. 
Then within the Plaza Hatabin^ the crowds assemble fast. 
Like unto the Day of Judgment they erect a scaffold vast. 
If one is to be released, they clothe him in a yellow vest, 
While with hideous painted devils to the flames they give the rest. 



^ Albotado was a converso and a priest of the New Christians to 
whom Francisco Abenedem, a bricklayer at work on the Alhambra, 
revealed in confession the conspiracy on foot in the Albaycin. An- 
tonio de Ilorozco was a canon of Sacromonte. The houses of both 
were attacked on the night when Abenfarax entered Granada. — Mar- 
mol, Lib. IV. c. 2, 4. 

^ The Soq el-hattabin or the wood-market. 



APPENDIX. 437 

Thus are we encompassed round as with a fiercely burning fire, 
Wrongs past bearing are heaped on us, higher yet and ever higher. 
Vainly bend we to their mandates ; Sundays, feast-days though we 

keep. 
Fasting Saturdays and Fridays, never safety can we reap. 

Each one of their petty despots thinks that he can make the law, 
Each invents some new oppression. Now a sharper sword they 

draw ! 
New Yearns day in Bib el Bonut^ they proclaimed some edicts new. 
Startling sleepers from their slumbers, as each door they open 

threw. 

Baths and garments, all our old ancestral customs are forbidden, 
To the Jews we are delivered, who can spoil us still unchidden. 
Little reck the priest and friar so they trample on us yet ; 
Like a dove in vulture talons, we are more and more beset. 

Hopeless, then, of man's assistance, we have searched the prophets 

o' er. 
Seeking promise in the judgments which our fathers writ of yore ; 
And our wise men counsel us to look to God with prayer and fast. 
For through woes that make youth aged. He will pity us at last ! 

I have done ; but life were short our sorrows fully to recall. 

Kind Senores, do not blame me, if I am too weak for all. i 

Whoso chants these rugged verses, let his prayers to God arise, | 

That His mercy may vouchsafe me the repose of Paradise ! f 



t 



^ The Gate of the Banner — the principal plaza in the Albaycin. 



438 APPENDIX. 



XIII. 

Letter of Inquisitor-General Quiroga Suggesting the 
Expulsion of the Moriscos (p. 302). 

(Archivo Hist. Nacional, Inquisicion de Valencia, Cartas del Consejo, 
Legajo 5, No. 1, fol. 254). 

Muy W""^ Inquisidores. Consideraiido la multitud de nuebos 
combertidos de Moros que a.i en estos Reiuos de Castilla y en todos 
los lugares dellos y en los de la Corona de Aragon ansi en ese como 
en el de Aragon y que de cada dia va' creziendo y quan mezclados 
estan entre los catolicos cristianos y quan ladinos y entendidos en 
las cosas dellos y que en su manera de bivir y profesion de cristi- 
andad se ve y espera tampoco fructo y que son tan enemigos nuestros 
como se ha visto y vee y la esperiencia lo muestra de cada dia pone 
en cuidado de mirar en ello y obligarnos a saver y aun su Magestad 
lo desea si convenia questos estubiesen entre nosotros como de 
presente estan, 6 si seria bien dar orden y medio como apartarlos 
y alejarlos, quitandoles la ocasion que se puede muy bien tener 
dellos si la viesen en alguno tiempo, que nuestro Seiior no per- 
mita, para inquietar estos Reynos y desasosegarlos, y en caso que 
esto pareciese que orden se podria tener para ello y que S)e habia 
de hazer dellos y adonde y en que parte se podrian poner para 
estar con la seguridad que conviniese, pasando este negocio como 
lo requiere la qualidad y gravedad del, mirando las razones que 
para la una parte y otra podrian conbencer y avisandonos dellos 
muy puntual y particularmente y con la mas brevedad que ser 
pueda. Guarde nuestro Seiior vuestros muy R*^""' personas. Mad- 
rid, 7 de Mayo, 1590.— G. Carlis. Toletan. 



APPENDIX. 439 

XIV. 

Brief E-elation^ of the Expulsion from Valencia (p. 320). 
(Archiyo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Sala 51, Legajo 205, fol. 2). 

En 22 de Setiembre 1609, se publico un real bando de S. M. en 
la presente ciudad de Valencia, mandando por las causas en el 
contenidas que todos los moriscos del reyno de Valencia dentro 
de tres dias despues que en cada lugar de ellos se hiciere pregon 
para que se fuesen a embarcar so las penas en el contenidas, sali- 
essen de sus casas y lugares con lo que pudiesen llevar a cuestas 
y solo quedasen los niuos de quatro aiios abaxo con voluntad de 
sus padres 6 curadores. 

Fueron senalados para la embarcacion de dichos moriscos tres 
puertos, Alicante, Denia y Vinaros, ofreciendo S. M. pasaje franco 
y bastimentos, el qual bando se hizo con apercibimiento que pasados 
los tres dias pudiesen ser desbalijados y traidos al primer lugar 
para entregallos a la justicia y haziendo resistencia les pudiesen 
matar y que los bienes^muebles y raices de los moriscos fuesen de 
los senores de los lugares. 

En la playa de Alicante estaban aprestados los galeones de la 
Armada con Don Luis Fajardo general de ella y otras naves, y 
entendia en la embarcacion por tierra Don Baltasar mercader. 

En Denia estuvo de principio don Agustin Mexia maese de 
campo general y las galeras del Marques de Santa Cruz y otros 
vaixeles que acudian ; tambien asisteron a dicha embarcacion don 
Cristobal Sereno y el dotor Noto Eodriguez, Juez de corte. 

A Vinaros acudio Don Pedro de Toledo con las galeras de 
Espana y antes de publicarse el dicho bando estaban desembar- 
cadas las compaiiias del tercio de lombardia y parte de ellas subi- 
eron a la sierra de espada donde en otra ocasion los moriscos del 
reyno se subieron, y en el marquesado de Denia estuvo el tercio 
de Napoles. 

Despacharonse luego comisarios por el reyno y a un tiempo en 
la gobernacion de Alicante, en el ducado de Gandia y marquesado 
de Denia y a las partes mas vecinas de Vinaros para sacar los 
moriscos a embarcar, aunque de noche y a horas cautas entre las 



440 APPENDIX. 

aljamas principales del reino corrian muchos avisos tratando si 
se rebel arian, sus mayores alfaquies resolvieron que no, por dos 
causas principales, la una que tenian pronostico que les havia de 
venir un bien impensado a tiempo que perderian una coxida negra 
y que era este el cumplimiento del pronostico, la otra porque no 
tenian fuerzas para veneer ni aun para defenderse y si se algavan 
serian presto vencidos y sus mugeres cautivas y sus hijos christi- 
anos y serian causa de este grande pecado. Con este consejo de los 
alfaquies, aunque por falgos pareceres, determinaron de obedecer y 
fueron saliendo de sus casas y embarcandose y para mas facilitar 
su embarcacion se les dio libertad que hasta sallirse de sus casas 
pudiesen administrar sus bienes, y por este camino vendieron y 
gastaron quanto tenian, dando el trigo a dos y a tres reales la 
hanega que es grande estremo de barato en este reino, aunque 
despues se les quito libertad de vender ganados, trigo y azeite. 

Don Pablo Sanoguera persuadio a los moriscos de Alcacer, vasal- 
los de don Christobal sanoguera su hermano, que fuesen a embar- 
carse al Grao de Valencia y pagasen el flete e hiziesen su bizcocho 
para el viaje que de esta suerte serian de los mas bien librados del 
Eeino y se ahorrarian el largo camino y gastos hasta Denia 6 
Vinaros, y assi los que primero dexaron sus casas para embarcarse 
en el Eeino fueron los de Alcacer que, dia del Senor St. Miguel a 
29 de Setiembre, por la maiiana salieron y llegaron al Grao a 
medio dia a cavallo con sus carros y vagajes con mucha ropa que 
trabian. A estos siguieron los de picacente sus deudos, vecinos y 
amigos, y otros muchos senores de lugares con sus vasallos hizieron 
despues lo propio de suerte que en este Grao de Valencia con asis- 
tencia del do tor Francisco Pablo bazieron, juez de corte, se an 
embarcado hasta veynte y uno de Deziembre que fue continua la 
embarcacion, decisiete mil setecientos sesenta y seys moriscos, esta 
es nueve mil ochocientos noventa y siete hombres y mugeres de 
doce anos arriba, tres mil doscientos sesenta nueve de doce anos 
abajo, mil trescientos treinta y nueve de teta. En Alicante treinta 
y dos mil entre hombres y mugeres. En Denia treynta mil entre 
hombres y mugeres. En Vinaros quinze mil y doscientos entre 
hombres y mugeres. En Mancofa cinco mil seyscientos y noventa, 
que todos son 100,656. 

Pocos dias despues de comengada la embarcacion los moriscos 
fueron subiendo a los montes en dos partes distintas y apartadas 
del Eeyno, esto es en los montes de Alaguar y en la muela de 



APPENDIX, 441 

Cortes y de cada dia fueron creciendo el numero de suerte que en 
el de Alagaar llegaron a doce mil hombres y mugeres grandes y 
pequenos de la vail de guadeleste, confirdes, sella, xalon, gata, 
orba, Alcalali, mosquera y Alaguar y de algunos otros lugares. 
A muchos hicieron salir por fuerga de sus casas y rebelarse. Estos 
escogieron y levaron por rey a Geronimo Mellin, valiente moro. 

En la muela de oro que es la misma de cortes se juntaron mas 
de nueve mil entre hombres, mugeres, grandes y pequeiios. Estos 
nombraron por sa Rey a Vicente turiri, hombre de buen entendi- 
miento y valeroso. En ambas partes se proveyeron Men de basti- 
mentos de trigo, arroz, pasas, higos, miel y mucha arina. Aunque 
estaban muy mal armados hicieron grandes insolencias de robar 
y quemar yglesias, acuchillar las imagines y en particular el San- 
tisimo Crucifixo y de la gloriosisima reyna de los Angeles, y el 
dotor baziero prendio a tres de estos sacrilegos [que] quemaron y 
robaron a yglesia de bicorbe. 

Despues de muchas embajadas y tratos que huvo entre los moros 
de Alaguar y don Agustin mexia maese de campo general con 
que procuraban entretenerse los moriscos, pidiendo plazas largas 
para embarcarse, determino de apretallos poco a poco con la gente 
que tenia de los tercios de napoles y secilia y con las compaillas 
de la milisia efectivar del Eeyno que acudieron y lo mismo fue a 
esta otra parte de la muela de cortes que don Joan de Cordoba, 
maese de campo del tercio de lombardia estaba con su tercio y 
don Alvaro vique sorogado de gobernador con las companias del 
tercio de la Rivera de la milicia efectiva donde asistian tambien 
don Joan pacheco carrillo y don Esteban su hermano y fue Dios 
servido que en ambas partes los campos a un mesmo tiempo fueron 
apretando los moros de suerte que de dia de la presentacion de 
nuestra Senora [21 Nov.] al amanecer envistieron a los enemigos 
y el campo de don Agustin mexia cerro con ellos y luego volvi- 
eron las espaldas como a gente bisona y desarmada y en el encu- 
entro y seguida de la Vitoria les mato mas de dos mil y les gano 
los lugares do estaban y el pendon que hera lo mas fuerte y los 
demas subieron a lo mas alto donde ni tenian que comer ni gota 
de agua para bever y ansi les tuvo apretados el campo unos quantos 
dias hasta que se rindieron para embarcarse y baxaron con tanta 
furia y tan sedientos que de pechos se arrojaban en el agua y 
algunos rebentaron beviendo, y de alii los Uevaron a embarcar a 
Denia. 



442 APPENDIX. 

Don Juan de Cordova Uegandose con el campo al lugar de cortes 
el dicho dia de la presentacion de nuestra Senora y adelanfcandose 
la cavalleria donde iban dichos don Joan pacheco y don Esteban 
haviendo caminado como media legua ballaron catorze morillos 
con banderillos blancos, seilal de paz, los quales postrados por tierra 
pidieron misericordia en nombre de todos, y haviendolos remitido 
a Don Joan de Cordoba que dixo que se rindiesen en buena ora 
que el habia lo que le pareciesse y les admitio prometiendoles que 
no serian robados ni maltratados, y no lo pudo cumplir porque 
los soldados les desvalixaron todos sin dexarles cosa alguna y al 
ultimo estos moriscos baxaron en veces y dias diferentes y los unos 
fueron a embarcarse a Denia y mas de tres mil al grao de Valencia. 

Geronimo Mellin murio pelando valerosamente el dia de nuestra 
senora que fue vencido y luego despues levantaron por cabeza a 
su hermano Christobal mellin cuyo cuerpo difunto dias despus fue 
traido a la ciudad de Valencia. 

En la muela de cortes quedaron mas de dos mil moros despues 
de haver baixado la mayor parte de ellos con seguridad para em- 
barcarse y por ser los montes muchos y muy espelos llenos de 
barrancas y que nos han dado mucho trabajo en reduzillos 6 
preudellos haciendo extraordinarias diligencias y poco a poco los 
han sacado del monte, unos reducidos con seguridad de sus vidas 
para embarcarse, otros presos y cautivos, y entre otras diligencias 
que se han hecho fue publicar con bandos que los que estaban en 
la muela rebelados dentro de tres dias baijassen pasados los quales 
pudiese qualquier particular prendelios y cautivallos y si hiciesen 
resistencia les pudiesen matar, reservandose libertad el Virrey de 
tomallos para las galeras pagando veinte ducados por cada uno, 
con lo qual salia mucha gente de diferentes lugares y fueron por 
los montes cautivando muchos y han quedado solo hombres 
. . , y los mas dellos mozos al pie de ciento y cinquento con 
diez 6 onze mugeres. 

Estan dichos moriscos tan aborrecidos por no embarcarse que 
por medio de don bautista pallas hermano del sefior de Cortes an 
pedido de merced al Virey que les asegure de no embarcallos ni 
ser exclaves de las galeras y se rendiran voluntariamente para ser 
exclavos de particulares para lo qual han baxado cinco moros de 
los principales y se les ha concedido esta seguridad hoy que esta- 
mos 6 de margo 1620 [1610 ?] con lo qual se tiene por cierto bax- 
aran los que quedan. 



APPENDIX, 443 

Eiiscando los moros por los montes unos soldados del conde de 
Carlet allaron en uua ciieva a Vicente Turiri, mujer, hijos y otros 
hombres y mugeres los quales tmxeron a este ciadad de Valencia 
y a dicho Turiri le dieron sentencia que fuese atenaceado y cor- 
tadas las orijas y hecho quartos y sa cabe^a puesta al portal de esta 
ciudad dicho de St. Vicente, executose asi y murio como buen 
cristiano confesando y pidiendo perdon a nuestro Seiior y encom- 
endandose al Seiior y a su madre bendita de quien havia sido 
devoto y viviendo hizo muchas limosnas. 

Hanse liallado por los montes muchos moriscos muertos, unos 
de hambre, despues que fueron rendidos, otros despenados volun- 
tariamente solo pDr no embarcarse 6 quedar en manos de chris- 
tianos, otros muchos luego de principio quando se hecho el bando 
general se salieron del reyno para Aragon, Cataluiia y a Francia 
muchos de ellos. 

En el discurso de la embarcacion del Grao han sucedido varios 
casos porque de algunos de los moros era tanto el deseo y gana 
que tenian de embarcarse que estando en las taraganas muriendose 
y boqeando se hicieroa Uevar al navio por no quedar en tierra y 
luego tuvieron desengaiio de su daiiada secta, muriendo y hechando 
su cuerpo a los peces, otros hivan como si fuesen a bodas vestidas 
los mugeres de fiesta con lo mejor que tenian y una que vio embar- 
car sus deudos no hizo mas que parir y con la criatura en los brazos 
se fue a embarcar en dia aspero, ventoso y muy frio, no embargante 
que se le ofrecio muy buen recoximiento si se queria quedar. 
La gente pobre y tullida traian de los lugares algunos de ellos 
a brazos, pareciendoles que hacian una grande obra de caridad, 
otros no embargante que se quedaban en tierra maridos, hermanos 
6 hijos se an embarcado con el mayor contento del mundo. 

Por el contrario se han visto grandes extremos de muchas per- 
sonas que querian quedarse, ofreciendo primero al cuchillo al 
garganta que embarcandose, algunos han deixado ir sus padres y 
mugeres y se an quedado no embargante se quedaban sin hacienda, 
otros se han escondido y huydo del Grao por no embarcarse, haci- 
endo grandes demonstraciones de christianosy escogiendo el estado 
de exclavitud antes de salir de Espana, y en particular una moga 
de quince anos hizo particulares diligencias para quedarse estando 
ya en la taragana y fue Dies servido darle una grande enfermedad 
para su salvacion porque viendose apretada de la enfermedad llamo 
un christian que pasaba por delante su Rancho y le dixo que le 



444 APPENDIX. 

truxese un confesor que queria morir como buena cristiana, hizolo 
asi y dicha moga se confeso y dio la alma a Dios a lo que se puede 
creer piamente, y su cuerpo fue enterrado en la yglesia del Grao. 

En los viajes hubo diferentes sucesos, porque aunque el mar 
navegando no se a perdido ningun baixel de los que han embarcado 
moriscos en el Grao, pero estando muchos de ellos con otros de Denia 
y Mancofa en el cabo de Palos aguardando buen tiempo les sobre- 
vino faerte cierzo con el qual se perdieron y ahogaron como cien 
moriscos de piles y de otras partes y se perdieron tres saetias, dos 
de Denia y la otra de Marzella, y el dia siguiente se hallo en una 
destas saetias una niiia de quatro alios viva, estando el baixel 
lleno de agua y de cuerpos muertos. Una nave del capitan pedro 
nicolas Uegada a Arzen y haviendo desembarcado la mayor parte 
de los moros dio al traves en tierra y se perdio. 

Una saetia del patron Pedro fita Catalan assi mismo haviendo 
llegado a Arzen el viejo se perdio y todos los moros salieron a 
salvamento a tierra mas no se pudieron librar de los alarves que 
a todos los desbalijaron dexando aun las mugeres en cueros y 
este patron y sus marineros quentan que escapandose de los alarbes 
y caminando a Oran vieron degollados y muertos mas de nueve 
mil hombres y mugeres y entre ellos un nino asido a los pechos 
y tetas de su madre muerta. 

El comendador de nuestra Senora de las mercedes de Oran ha 
escrito que es tan grande la Rissa que los alarves han hecho en los 
moriscos por los campos y despues han muerto tantos de enfermi- 
dades que entiende que de todos los que han desembarcado por 
aquel paraje no queda la tercera parte. 

Agora se van recogiendo algunos moriscos que hay por el Eeino 
entre personas particulares para embarcallos y sienten lo tanto 
que los pocos moros que estan en esta ciudad para embarcarse 
de buena gana se quedarian exclavos si les permitiese estar en el 
Eeino. 



INDEX. 



ABEXABO, Abdalla, 237 
^ his murder, 261 
Abencerrages leave Granada, 22 
A ben Humava, rebel king, 237 

pursuit of,"' 242. 245 
Abjuration de vehementi, 101 
Abonos, 113 
Abraham Senior ransoms Jews of 

Malaga, 18 
Absolution, abuse of, 157 
Abu Jusuf,his intervention in Spain, 

3 
Accomplices, denunciation of, 113, 

170, 172 
Accused sworn to secrecv, 111 
Agofras, 184 

Admiral of Aragon, case of, 134 
Adrian, Cardinal, grants edicts of 
grace, 52 

limits arrests, 53 

toleration for forced converts, 68 
Adventurers in wars with Moors, 94 
Advocates of prisoners, 112 
Affinity in marriage, 204 
Africa, intercourse with, prohibited, 
188 

suffering of exiles in, 363 
Agde, colony of Moriscos in, 346 
Agermanados require baptism of 

Moors, 63 
Agi Ibrahim sent to France, 341 , 361 
Agreda, mingling of races in, 151 
Agreement of 1528, 96 
A guar, Val del, rebellion in, 333 
Agailar, persecution of Moriscos of, 

52 
Aguilar, Alonso de, death of, 39 
Aguilar, Count of, on suffering of 

exiles, 363 
Ahmed I. intervenes for exiles in 

France, 341, 361 
Alami, Miguel, his mission to France, 

286 



Alarache surrendered to Spain, 289 
Alarcon. Garcia de, a coiner, 379 
Albarracia, conversion of Moors of, 
27 

Moriscos persecuted, 60 

races kept apart in, 152 
Albaycin of Granada, 31 

attempt on, 236 

its depopulation, 250 
Albayda, baptism of Moors of, 64 
Albertus Magnus on coerced baptism , 

72 
Alboacen, Luis, case of, 189 
Albuiluela destroyed, 249, 250 
Alcocer, Pedro de, suggests expul- 
sion, 300 
Alfandecheln, Val de, 144 
Alfaques, embarkation at, 339 
Alfaquies supplicate Charles V., SQ 

fined for visiting the sick, 162 
Alfatami, his reappearance ex- 
pected, 335 
Alfonso IX. massacres Moors, 4 
Alfonso X., rebellions against, 3 

founds Ciudad-Real, 383 
Alfrex, Gaspar de, rescued, 99 
Algiers, co-operation of Moriscos 
with, 281 

toleration in, 363 
Alguaziles force Moriscos to church, 
144, 146 

collect fines, 201 

of the sierra submit, 241 
Alicante, embarkation at, 331 
Alliances between Christians and 

Moors, 2 
Almagro, persecutions in, 109 

returned exiles in, 354 
Almanzora, reduction of vallev of, 

255 
Alviojarifes excite disaffection. 24 
Almohades and Almoravides, 1 
Almonacir, revolt in, 90 
Alonso de la Guarda, case of, 107 



446 



INDEX, 



Alonso de Soria, caije of, 107 
Alpujarras, revolt in 1500, 88 

devastated m 1570,261 
Amuratarraez, his expedition, 275 
Andalusia, its suffering from Moris- 
cos, 209 
expulsion from, 345 
Andarax, slaughter in, 38 
Antagonism of races, 178 
Antequeruela of Granada, 31 
Apostates, benignant asperity for, 79 

death penalty for, 297 
Appeals to the pope, 84 
Arabic, Talavera studies it, 26 
prints gospels in. 35 
books, are proof of heresy, 131 
ignorance of 149 
its use forbidden, 162, 215, 229 
penalties for speaking it, 267 
Aragon exacts oath from Ferdinand, 
58 
expulsion ordered from, 87 
protests against conversion, 88 
remonstrates against Inquisition, 

96 
confiscation in, 97, 121, 124 
utility of Inquisition, 118 
slaughter of Moriscos, 179 
disarmament in, 194 
description of Moriscos. 207 
Moriscos forbidden to enter, 266 
rebellious plots of Moriscos, 280, 

282, 285 
Morisco counterfeiting, 314 
protest against expulsion, 338 
edict of expulsion, 339 
exactions on the exiles, 339, 343 
number of exiles, 340 
remnants expelled, 351 
use made of escheats, 373 
losses of Inquisition. 375 
assessment of fogaje, 387 
Archbishopric of Valencia, its rev- 
enue, 143 
Arms, see Disarmament. 
permission to bear, repudiated, 

192 
forbidden to Granadan exiles, 267 
Arnaldo of Tarragona urges expul- 
sion, 10 
Arrests, Suprema to be first con- 
sulted, 53 
Asquer, Luis, Morisco king, 287 
Asylum, right of, curtailed, 224 
Augustin, St., on compulsory bap- 
tism, 71 
Austria, Jorje of, his pension, 143 



Avalos, Abp , forbids Moorish dress, 

217 
Avila, Mudejares converted, 45 
Avila, Antonio de, killed, 245 
Ayala, Archbishop, prints Arabic 
catechism, 149 

suppresses fasts, 165 

introduces limpieza, 200 

his provincial council in 1564, 162 
Aytona, Viceroy, sends exiles to 

France, 341 



DADOERO, FEDERICO, on Span- 

^ ish industry, 380 

Balaguer, Bishop, seeks to retain 

children, 323 
Ballad, Morisco, of Granada, 234, 434 
Bankruptcy caused by expulsion, 371 
Baptism, coerced, prohibited, 59 

of Valencian Moors, 63 

perplexity caused by it, 69 

investigation into it, 74 

its irregularities, 76 

declared valid, 78 

Moors ordered to submit to, 85, 87 

wholesale in Valencia, 91, 95 

of Morisco children, 202 
Barbarossa, Moriscos fast for him, 99 
Barbary, Granadan Moors allowed 
to go there, 40 

emigration to, prohibited, 188 

aid expected from, 281, 282, 283 

Moriscos transported to, 320 

their sufferings, 363 
Barcelona, familiars must be limpios, 
200 

edict of expulsion published, 339 

bankruptcy caused by expulsion, 
371 

renegades in auto de fe, 390 
Barredo, Francisco, 261 
Bartolome de los Angeles, 138, 148 
Basque Provinces forbid residence of 

conversos, 198 
Baths, a sign of heresy, 129, 131 

limitation on, in Valencia, 162 

forbidden in Granada, 216, 229 
Bayarte, Adrian, sells royal escheats, 

373 
Baza, expulsion of Moriscos, 259 
Beam, passage of exiles through, 341 
Beatification of Ribera, 163 
Beaumont, Rodrigo de, case of, 134 
Belficjue, massacre of, 38 
Benaguacil. resistance in, 91 
Benamir, Juan de, his letter, 282 



INDEX. 



447 



Benefices, their reduced value, 369 
Benignant methods. 308 
Bermeja, rising in sierra of, 39 
Bernardo, Isabel de, Morisca, 392 
Bernia, Moors take refage there, 80 
Bertran, San Luis, on coerced bap- 
tism, 73 
his suggestions, 149 
Betrothal ceremonies, 229 
Bib el-Bonut, plaza of, 33 
Bilboa, limpieza requisite in, 198 
Biscay, expulsion of conversos from. 

198 
Bishops to undertake instruction, 161 
their indifference, 164 
called on to endow rectories, 176, 
303 
Blanch, Nofre, case of, 131 
Bleda, Fray, justifies Ximenes, 37 
conversion of Castilian Moors, 46 
knowledge of Arabic, 151 
opposes mixed marriages, 154 
exactions on Moriscos, 186 
baptism of children, 203 
Moorish dress and language, 216 
prefers general massacre, 297 
his Defmsio Fidei, 298 
complains of opposition, 299 
his labors, 309 
expulsion of children, 322 
returning exiles, 364 _^ 
his rejoicing, 366 
minimizes losses, 368 
Bongars, his letter to Sully, 306 
Boniface VIII. compels restitution, 4 
on coerced baptism, 72 
legitimates Fernando lY., 204 
Books, Moorish, burnt. 32 
Borja, Tomas de, escapes capture, 
275 
reports on Moriscos, 314 
Brachan, Thomas, plots with Moris- 
cos, 287 
Brazo Real, complaints of, 386 
Bridge of Tablate, 241 
Buenaventura, Geronimo, case of, 390 
Burghley, Lord, refuses aid to Mo- 
riscos, 287 
Burgos, Moriscos registered at, 350 

depopulation of, 381 
Burial customs of Moriscos, 129. 202 
Burning, cases of, in Valencia, 61, 95, 
98, 103, 160 
for relapse, 157 
Butchers punished for fautorship, 
133 
Moriscos forbidden to act as, 207 



pACHADIABLO, his expedition, 
^' 273 

Caetano describes the Moriscos, 279 
Calahorra, persecution by Inq. of, 52 
Calalui, disaster of, 39 
Calcena sent to Valencia, 100, 141 
Callosa, Moriscos of, carried off, 276 
! Camarma de Esteruelas, 382 
; Campo franco, 253 
; Chfiete, Miguel, case of, 129 
Canons require. confiscation, 220 
require death for heresy, 297 
Capitulations in conquest of Gra- 
nada, 18 
annulled, 35 
Carlet, Moorish practices in, 128 
Carlos II. seeks to check growth of 

Church, 382 
Carriers, Moriscos as, 187 
Carroz brothers, case of, 134 
j Cartagena, numbers embarking at, 
I 350 

j mosque in 1769, 393 
\ Caspe, conversion of Moors of, 27 
Castellvi, Francisco, case of, 134 
Castile, Moors invited to settle in, 23 
conversion of Mud ej ares, 42 
Moors forbidden to enter, 44 
failure to instruct them, 48, 137 
Moriscos outwardly Christians, 55 
their persecution, 104 
description of Moriscos, 208 
cortes of, 1592, complain of them, 

210 
expulsion, 248 
confiscations, 372 
Council of, its suggestions, 384 
Castillo, Alonso del, 262 
Castillo, Ana del, case of, 392 
! Castration of children proposed, 296 
i Catalonia exacts oath from Ferdi- 
I nand, 58 

I expulsion ordered from, 87 
I few cases in, 174 
I Moriscos not disarmed, 196 
; disquiet of Moriscos, 337 
edict of expulsion, 339 
number of exiles, 340 
I losses of Inquisition, 375 
i Catechism printed in Arabic, 149 

Cattle, diminution of, 385 
1 Cavalli, Sigismondo, on dangers from 
I abroad. '272 

i Caxa de Leruela, his suggestions, 385 
Cemeteries, Moriscos wish their own, 

202 
Censos of Moors, their importance, 88 



448 



INDEX, 



Censos, amount of, in Valencia, 319 

troubles caused by, 370 
Cervantes, his description of Moris- 
cos, 209 
of a corsair raid, 276 
Charles le Mauvais remits taxes, 56 
Charles V. waives confiscations, 52 
his oath to Valencia, 68 
restrains the Inquisition, 60 
penalty for insults, 70 
orders apostates prosecuted , 74 
validates enforced baptism, 78 
resolves on conversion, 82 
applies for dispensation, 83 
orders conversion of Valencia, 85, 

^& 
confiscation in Aragon, 121 

in Valencia, 123 
sends preachers to Valencia, 148 
desires to abolish Morerias, 153 
asks Inqn to protect Moriscos, 184 
forbids change of domicile, 187 
his edict of 1526, 214 
he suspends it, 217 
accepts offers of Granadan Moris- 
cos, 220 
on manumitted slaves, 276 
Children of Moriscos given to Chris- 
tians, 39 
baptized against will of parents, 73 
they must be baptized, 78, 202 
their enslavement, 239, 250, 261, 

265 ^ 
proposition to seize them, 294 
scruples as to expelling, 313 
discussions concerning them, 322, 

338 
provisions in Valencia, 321 
stealing and selling them, 323, 324 
provisions in Catalonia, 339 
in Andalusia, 345 
Christian Moriscos, their fate in 
Africa, 363 
in Castile, 347, 351, 352, 375 
enslaved in Granada, 239 
Christians, tolerated by Moors, 1 
their relations with Mudejares, 66 
they enslave Moors, 90 
are slain by Moriscos, 181 
Church, the, stimulates intolerance, 
4, 5, 8, 10 
neglects instruction of Moriscos, 

48, 143 
its control over marriage, 203 
eagerness to enter it, 380 
its influence on Spain, 400 
Churches, sanbenitos hung in, 53 



Churches to be organized in Valencia, 
139 
burial in, 202 
asylum in, curtailed, 224 

Churruca, Inq^, prosecutes the newly 
baptized, 67 
investigates coerced baptism, 74 

Cid,the, buried in Moorish garment, 
74 

Cidi Abducarim, his conversion, 70 

Cidan, Muley, King of Morocco, 289 
he causes alarm, 312 

Circumcision among Moriscos, 214 

Ciudad-Real, its depopulation, 383 

Cleanliness a sign of heresy, 129 

Clemencin, Dom, on contempt for 
labor, 380 

Clement IV. orders expulsion, 4 

Clement VII. moderates penalties 
for apostasy, 79 
dispenses Charles from his oath, 83 
urges more rapid conversion, 98 
orders churches organized, 139 
authorizes absolution, 156, 157 
empowers Inqn to protect Moriscos, 
184 

Clement VIII. grants absolution for 
relapse, 160 
insists on denunciation of accom- 
plices, 170 
hisbriefof 1599, 171 

Clergy, overgrown numbers of, 381 

Coasts of Spain unprotected, 272 
restrictions on approaching, 277 

Cock, Enrique, his description of Mo- 
riscos, 207 

Cocolla, Gaspar, on fautorship of no- 
bles, 133 

Codo, Moriscos of, destroyed, 179 

Coercion in baptism, 71 
degrees of, 72 

Coinage, counterfeit, 377 

Coiners, 378 

College for Moriscos proposed, 142 
description of it, 146 
funds for it, 165 
its failure, 167 

its revenues assigned to Inquisi- 
tion, 376 

Colonna, Pedro, leads his vassals to 
France, 342 

Commission on Valencia baptisms, 75 

Complaints against Moriscos, 209, 
210 

Compromise as to confiscation, 125 

Concordia of 1528, 96 
of 1571, 125 



INDEX. 



449 



Condition of Moriscos, 178 
Confession four times a year, 142 

judicial, imperfect, 50, 116 

written, an obstacle, 101, 219 

must include denunciation, 113, 
170, 172 

to inquisitors, 167, 218 

sacramental, allowed, 99 

secret, permitted, 156 
Confessors absolve in utroqueforo. 100 
Confiscation for heresy, 50, 119 

commuted in Ara^on, 97 

diverted to Inq^, 120 

Inqn persists in enforcing it, 122, 
124 

suspended in 1546, 101, 123 

compromise of 1571. 125 

refused to Granada, 218, 219 

of lands of exiles, 345, 349, 372 
Concegiles, 238 
Cbnjuracion, 1 79 
Consanguinity in marriage, 204 
Conscience, freedom of, impossible, 

294, 328 
Consejo de Pohlaciones, 265, 269 
Consentaina, baptism of Moors of, 64 
Conspiracies ascribed to Moriscos, 

278 
Constantinople, exiles reach, 362 
Contempt for Moors, 70 

for labor, 379 
Convents, Christian Moriscos enter, 

357 
' multiplication of, 381 
Conversions in 1391, 13 

of Teruel and Albarracin, 27 

of Granada, 35, 38 

of Castile, 45 

coercion prohibited, 59 

of Valencia attempted, 69 

obstacles to, 166 

futile attempts at, 138, 145, 147, 
155, 161, 165, 172, 175 
Converses, 13 



Cordova, remonstrates against pro- 
hibition of Arabic, 268 
asks for retention of saddlers, 346 
renegades in autos de fe, 390 
Morisca condemned in, 392 
I Corsairs, their ravages, 272 
I Cortea, lord of, his fate, 92 
! Cortes, Pedro, betrays Morisco plot, 
I 288 
Cortes of Castile order badges worn, 8 
in 1528, on Morerias, 152 
j in 1592, complain of Moriscos, 210 
I in 1542, on coast defence, 273 
in 1532, on corsair raids, 276 
Cortes of Aragon obtain fuero from 
Ferdinand, 58 
in 1537 and 1547 complain of In- 
quisition, 98, 124,144 
Cortes of Valencia, 1528, petition 
against Inquisition, 96 
for suspension of Inqn, 99 
complain of confiscation, 120-3 
in 1564, on failure of instruction, 

161 
in 1604, ask for more rectories, 

175 
in 1528, assert rights over converts, 

183 
in 1547, on limpieza, 199 
in 1564, admit Moriscos to bene- 
fices, 200 
in 1564, ask for dispensations, 205 
in 1604, on coast defence, 273 
Coruna as port of departure, 87 
Cosme Aben-Amir, 125 
Council of Valencia, 1564, 162 

in 1608, 176 
Counsel for prisoners, 112 
Counterfeiting, prevalence of, 314, 

378 
Crusade, War of E-econquest as, 1 
I against Moors of Espadan, 93 
i Cruzada, Com^ of, grants dispensa- 
i tions, 206 



not allowed to emigrate, 41,45, 188 j Cuenca, Moriscos of, persecuted, 52 



their instruction neglected, 86, 138, 

214,300 
treated like Moors, 183 
numbers of, 360 
Corban, king in Espadan, 92 
C6rdova, Fray Caspar de, objects to 

expulsion, 311 
Cordova, Hernando de, rebel king, 

237 
Cordova, Sancho de, case of, 134 
C6rdova complains of Granadan ex- 
iles, 265 



auto de fe of 1585, 110 
decline of wool-trade, 385 



DAIMIEL, Moriscos of, prosecuted, 
104 
; Dancer, Simon, his exploits, 275 
: Dangers from abroad, 271 
Dan Vila y Collado on the expulsion, 

395 
Da Vila, Gil Gonzales, on numbers of 
clergy, 381 



29 



450 



INDEX, 



Davila, Gomez, proposes massacre, 

296 
Dead animals, refusal to eat, 130 
Dead, the, masses for, prescribed, 163 

Morisco customs, 201 
Death-penalty for escape to Africa, 
189 
for heretics, 297 
Debts due to Moriscos escheated, 374 
Defence, obstacles to, in Inquisition, 

112 
Defensio Fidei, the, 298 
De la Marche, Abp. of Valencia, 140 
Denia, embarkation at, 330 
Denialof heresy implies impenitence, 

113 
Denunciation of accomplices indis- 
pensable, 50, 113, 170, 172 
Depopulation of Granada, 250, 256, 
257, 259 

of Spain, 382 

of Ciudad-Real, 383 
Depredations on Moriscos, 329 
Descendants of converts, absolution 
for, 158 
their disabilities, 197 
Despaldar, engagement of, 274 
Deza, Diego de, treats with Moriscos, 

221 
Deza, Pedro de, his character, 227 

publishes edict of 1566, 230 

seizes leaders of Albaycin, 235 

invites los Velez, 238 

his plan of campaign, 249 

expulsion entrusted to him, 256 

his final triumph, 263 
Diaz, Diego, his services, 392 
Diego Herrez, case of, 106 
Diego Paez Limpati, case of, 109 
Disabilities of reconciled heretics, 49 

of descendants of Moors and Jews, 
197 
Disarmament, 41, 190, 193, 216 
Dispensations for oaths, 83 
Dispensations for marriage, 204, 205, 

206 
Doctrmeros to teach Moriscos, 155 
Dog as opprobrious epithet, 70 
Domicile, change of, forbidden, 183, 

187 
Dominican college, limpieza in, 198 
Dominium utile and directum, 122 
Donato, Leonardo, on rebellion of 

Granada, 263 
Doors, house, to be open, 229 
Dragut carries off Moriscos, 276 
Dress, Moorish, forbidden, 215, 217 



Duarte, Jusuf, his mission to the 

Sultan, 281 
Duns Scotus on coerced baptism, 72 



ECONOMICAL results of expulsion, 
^ 369, 383 

Edict of expulsion, in 1525, 87 
from Valencia, 320 
from Aragon and Catalonia, 339 
from Andalusia, 345 
Edicts of Grace, 49, 52, 156 
assessment for, 158 
their failure, 160 
of 1597, 170 
of 1599, 172, 303, 307 

its failure, 173 
for Moriscos of Granada, 222 
Edict of Granada of 1526, 215, 217, 
227 
of 1566, 229 
Egypt, Granadans appeal to, 36 
niches, 32 
Elizabeth, Queen, her relations with 

Moriscos, 287 
Embarkation of Morisco exiles, 329- 

31 
Embezzlement, 147 
Emigration forbidden, 41, 45, 188 
caused by Germ an la, 67 
as a remedy, 292, 299 
Empress-regent forbids Moorish 

dress, 217 
Endowment for stipends of rectors, 

166, 176 
England, Moriscos seek aid from, 287 
Enriquez. Juan, asks suspension of 

edict, 231 
Enslavement of prisoners, 239 
Enzinas on Moreria of Agreda, 151 
Episcopal reconciliation authorized, 
102 
supervision of instruction, 161 
Equality, promises of, 85, 185 
Escape to Africa, death penalty for, 

189 
Escheats to the king, 372 
Espadan, rising in sierra of, 92 

seized and fortified, 319 
Espinosa, Diego de, his character, 
226 
his treatment of Mondejar, 228 
enforces edict of 1566, 231 
empowered to absolve for relapse, 
159 
Esteban, Bishop, his report, 168 
favors enslavement, 304 



INDEX. 



451 



Estimates of number of exiles, 359 
Evidence taken in secret, 112 

character of, 129 
Exactions on Moriscos, 184, 185 

on exiles, 339, 343 
Examination of witnesses secret, 112 
Execution of criminals in Valencia, 

211 
Exemptions all revoked, 352 

allowed in Murcia, 357 
Exhaustion, military, of Spain, 232, 

289 
Exiles, their number, 332, 340, 346, 
350, 353, 359 

exactions imposed on them, 339, 
343 

their fate, 360 

their return to Spain, 353, 364 

their property confiscated, 372 
Expatriation, 292, 299 
Expulsion ordered by popes, 4, 83 

urged by Arnaldo of Tarragona, 10 

demanded of Henry IV., 14 

urged on Juan XL, 15 

ordered from Valencia, 87 

from Granada, 250, 256, 259 

general, grows in favor, 300 

resolved upon in 1599, 307 

as an affair of state, 309 

outlined in 1602, 310 

postponed through poverty, 312 

finally resolved in 1608, 313 

preparations for, 315 

edict of Valencia, 320 

the process in Valencia, 326 

from Aragon and Catalonia, 339 

from Granada and Andalusia, 344 

from Castile, 348, 352 

from Murcia, 355 

final details, 358 

its results, 366 

indifference to its consequences, 
387 

its completeness, 388 

modern views of it, 394 
Extremadura, expulsion from, 349 



FAITH not to be kept with heretics, 
184 
Familiars of Inq., limpieza required 
for, 199 
as counterfeiters, 379 
Farax aben Farax, 236 
Far da, a special tax, 217 
Fate of exiles, 360 
Fautorship punished, 132 



Feast-day to celebrate expulsion, 358 
Feast-days, fines for working on, 201 
Felix, victory of, 244 

Moriscos of, enslaved, 260 
Ferdinand orders Jews expelled from 
Aragon, 15 
restrains the Inquisition, 27, 47, 

49, 59 
suppresses rebellion in Granada, 38 
orders instruction of Moriscos, 48 
his pledge to Valencia, 58 
prohibits coerced conversion, 59 
confirms /w6ro on confiscation, 120 
on Moreria of Agreda, 151 
depopulates the coast, 276 
P'erdinand and Isabella enforce canon 
of Vienne, 10 
establish Ghettos, 12 
establish the Inquisition, 14 
grant liberal terms of surrender, 16 
capitulations of Granada, 20 
invite Portuguese Moors, 23 
liberate baptized Moorish slaves, 

27 
take advantage of Granadan revolt, 
35 
Fernandez, Lazaro, case of, 391 
Fernandez, Miguel, his petition, 187 
Fernando IV., his legitimation, 204 
Ferrer, S. Vicente, his labors, 13 
Feudal jurisdiction abrogated, 224 
Fez, King of, appealed to by Moris- 
cos, 236 
Finances, Spanish, disorder of, 233 
Fine for abstaining from pork and 
wine, 105 
for delaying baptism, 162 
for Morisco fasts, 165 
for non-attendance at mass, 165 
for dying without a priest, 167 
for working on feast-days, 201 
Fines as punishment, 119 
worse than confiscation, 124 
limited to 10 ducats, 126 
Flores, Alvaro, 245 
Fogaje, assessment of, 387 
Fonseca on condition of Moriscos, 

186 
Fontanet, Salvador, regulates censos, 

371 
Foreigners impoverish Spain, 209 
Fraga, aljama of, protected by Fer- 
dinand, 28 
Frailes condemn the royal clemency, 

255 
France, emigration to, prohibited, 
190 



452 



INDEX. 



France, Moriscos expect aid from, 
281, 282, 285 
Moriscos escape to, 314 
exiles sent to, 340, 350 
their treatment, 341, 361 
Francis I. on Valencian Moors, 81 
Frare, Francisco Doquin, case of, 114 
Frauds in Spanish army, 253 
Freedom of conscience a heresy, 294 
Frenchmen, their numbers in Valen- 
cia, 285 
Friars to preach in Valencia, 138, 148 
Fuente, V. de la, on effects of expul- 
sion, 369, 394 
Fueros of the Kingdoms of Aragon, 
58 
abrogated by the pope, 84 
disregarded in the expulsion, 337 
Fueros of Moriscos destroyed, 286 



n ABRIEL DE CARMONA, case of, 
^ 106 
Gacis, 216 

Galera, storming of, 255 
Galleys as punishment for heresy, 
118 
for Moriscos found in Granada, 268 
usual punishment for friars, 298 
Morisco rebels sent to, 336 
returning exiles sent to, 353 
Gandia, rout of, 63 

baptism of Moors of, 65 
Gandia, Duke of, assists expulsion, 
326 
his reduced revenues, 369 
assisted by the king, 371 
Garan, Luis, case of, 135 
Garci Eodriguez, case of, 106 
Garments, Moorish, forbidden, 28, 

215, 217, 229 
Germania, the, 62 

determines to baptize the Moors, 

63 
emigration caused by, 67 
Gestalgar, Moriscos of, 119 
Ghettos, establishment of, 12 
Gibraltar occupied by Moors, 273 
Goths coerce Jews to baptism, 71 
Grace, edicts of, see Edicts. 
Gracian, Jeronimo, his captivity, 391 
Granada, capitulations granted to, 20 
infraction of capitulations, 23 
Talavera's labors, 26 
Inquisition extended over, 28 
Ximenes provokes revolt. 32 
enforced conversion in, 35 



Granada, general pardon, 37 
Moors forbidden to enter, 43 
situation in 1526, 138 
exiles of, their crimes, 183 
Moriscos are predial serfs, 187 
disarmament, 191 
limpieza not enforced, 198 
Inquisition setup in, 215 
condition of Moriscos grows worse, 

223 
its chancellery, 225 
edict of 1526, revived, 227 
edict of 1566, 229 
rebellion breaks out, 236 
rebellion breaks out afresh, 246 
policy of expulsion adopted, 256, 

259 
cost of the rebellion, 263 
repopulation, 264 
Moriscos forbidden to enter, 266, 

268 
rebellion, plots in aid of, 280 
expulsion from, 345 
existing Morisco villages, 365 
Moriscos at Ciudad-Real, 383 
Moriscos in 1727,392 

Granada, Don Juan de, his services, 
214 

Grao, embarkation at, 331 

(iregory XIII. grants absolution for 
relapse, 159 
forbids ordination to descendants of 
Moors, 200 

Grievances alleged against Moriscos, 
' 209, 210 

Guadalajara, his rejoicing, 366 

Guadix, expulsion of Moriscos, 257, 
260 

Quadoc, the, 131 

Guejar, enslavement of Moors in, 39 
massacre of, 242 
capture of, 254 

Guerra d fuego y d sangre, 91, 253 

Guerrero, Abp., his attempt at re- 
form, 213 
insists on confiscation, 223 
urges persecution on Philip II., 
226 

Guevara, Antonio de, his labors in 
Valencia, 69 
as inquisitorial commissioner, 78 
enforces conversion, 86 
his wholesale baptisms, 91 
forbids use of henna, 130 
transferred to Granada, 138 
extends edict of grace, 172 
his labors in Granada, 214, 218 



INDEX. 



463 



Guevara, Inqr-Gen^, interferes with 

Bleda, 300 
Guipuscoa, residence of converses 

forbidden, 198 
Gunpowder, preparation of, by Mo- 

riscos, 280, 284 



TTAgAN, ca 

■Al Hair, di 



case of, 68 



stinctive cut of, 8 



Harboring Moriscos, penalty for, 354 

Haro, restriction on Jews and Moors 
in, 14 

Haro, Ant. Ramirez de, sent to Valen- 
cia, 100, 101, 141. 145 

Hatred, mutual, of races, 178 

Haxus, case of, ^S 

He fele justifies Ximenes,37 

Heirs must have masses sung for the 
dead, 163 

Henna, use of, 130, 229 

Henry II. orders badges worn, 8 

Henry IV. (France), his relations 
with Moriscos, 279, 287 
his plans for invading Spain, 

290 
permits exiles to enter France, 341 

Heresy works confiscation, 122 
death penalty for, 297 

Heretics, faith not to be kept with, 
184 

Hermandad for daughters of Moris- 
cos, 172 

Herrador, Padre, case of, 374 

Hornachos, crimes of people of, 182 
expulsion from, 344 
its repopulation, 347 

Horozco, Canon, labors with Moris- 
cos, 230, 436 

Hospital Real, Moriscos confined in, 
251, 256 

Huguenot plots in aid of Moriscos, 
281 

Huesca, Moriscos of, prosecuted, 283 



TDIAQUEZ, FRANCISCO DE, his 

^ views, 302 

Idiaquez, Juan de, opposes expulsion, 

316 
Immigrants to Valencia, 370 
Impediments to conversion, 110, 166 
Impenitence inferred from denial of 

heresy, 114 
Imposts, excessive, laid on Moriscos, 

184, 185 
Independence of Spanish Church, 10 



Independence of Inquisition, 123 
Indolence ascribed to Spaniards, 380 
Industry of Mudejares, 6 
Innocent IV. orders expulsion, 4 
grants licence to deal with Moor- 
ish vassals, 8 
Inquisition, established in 1480, 14 
persecutes Mudejares, 27 
extended over Granada, 28 
restrained by Ferdinand, 49, 59 
restrained by Charles V., 52 
secrecy of its acts, 54 
activity in Valencia, 61 
prosecutes newly baptized, 67 
to suppress opposition to conver- 
sion, 84, 87 
enforces edict of baptism, 88 
statistics in Valencia, 95, 98, 100, 

103, 128,161,174 
disregards the Concordia, 97, 127 
of Valencia suspended in 15^0, 99 
superseded in 1546,100 
resumes action in 1562, 103 
makes religion hated, 110 
its political use, 118 
persists in confiscating, 120, 122 
independent of the crown, 123 
its activity in Valencia, 128 
claims jurisdiction over the un- 

baptized, 132 
prosecutes lords of Moriscos, 133 
enforces outward conformity, 173 
empowered to protect Moriscos, 184 
disarms Moriscos of Aragon, 194 
limpieza requisite for, 197 
established in Granada, 215 
opposition to it, 218 
prosecutes Tendilla's agents, 221 
its increasing activity, 223 
busied with Granadan exiles, 270 
contributes to guard the coast, 277 
its report on Morisco plots, 279 
employed on Morisco plots, 283, 

284 
to put all Moriscos to death, 297 
complaint of its oppression, 286 
its duties in the expulsion, 324 
prosecutes Morisco slaves, 355 
losses by the expulsion, 375 
its poverty, 377 

its records from 1780 to 1820, 393 
its influence, 400 
Inquisitors, their irresponsibility, 112 
ordered to convert bv preaching, 

137 
confession to, 167, 218 
of Valencia, their suggestion, 300 



454 



INDEX. 



Instruction of converts ordered, 86, 
95, 98, 137 

its failure, 145, 147 

renewed attempts, 155 

failure of plans for, 161 

renewed effort in 1586, 165 
in 1595, 166, 303 

Moriscos complain of lack of, 169 

causes of its failure, 171 

attempted in 1604, 176, 312 

kept up as a blind, 177 

absence of, in Granada, 214 
Intolerance, growth of, 398 
Insults to Moors, 70, 161 
Integrity of Moors, 7 
Intercourse with Mudejares prohib- 
ited, 11 

with Africa prohibited, 188 
Interest on censos, 370, 371 
Intermarriage with Christians, 154 
293 

among Moriscos, 205 
Irresponsibility of inquisitors, 55, 

112 
Isabel Ruiz, case of, 130 
Isabella orders Jews expelled from 
Andalusia, 15 

exiles Moors of Castile, 42 

forbids Moriscos to leave Castile, 45 



JAEN, its Inquisition transferred to 
Granada, 215 
James I. refuses aid to Moriscos, 287 
Janer on the expulsion, 395 
Jativa, baptism of Moors of, 64 
Jayme I permits Moors to remain, 4 

his fuero on confiscation, 120 
Jews ordered to wear badge, 8 
antagonism towards them, 10, 12 
persecutions in XV. century, 15 
their expulsion in 1492, 16 
Jofores, 234 

John, Don, of Austria, on Pedro de 
Deza, 227 
his demands for money, 233 
is sent to Granada, 246 
his reception, 248 
depopulates the Albaycin, 250 
allowed to take the field, 253 
complains of his troops, 256 
expulsion of Moriscos, 259 
Juan II. proposes to expel Mude 

jares, 15 
Juan Gomez, case of, 108 
Jubiles, massacre of, 243 
Judaizers purchase pardon, 312 



Juderias established, 11 
Junta on Valencia baptisms, 77 

on Morisco question, 168, 171 

of 1526 on Granada, 226 

of Lisbon, in 1581, 296 

of Madrid controls the Morisco 
question, 300 
Jurisdiction, ecclesiastical, invasion 

of. 309 



KINDNESS prescribed for Moriscos, 
161,292 
King, his share of spoils, 239, 244 
Knives, short and pointless allowed, 

191,196 
Koran, possession of, conclusive of 
heresy, 131 



[ ABOR, disinclination to, 379 

^^ La Force,Duke of, his plots with 
Moriscos, 287, 290 
arranges passage for exiles, 
341 

Lafuente, Modesto, on the expulsion, 
396 

La Mancha, expulsion from, 349 
existing Morisco villages, 368 

Lands, their sale forbidden, 349 
feudal, asylum in, 224 

Lapidation of Morisco criminals, 211 

Laroles, sack of, 245 

Las Casas, Ignatio de, advocates kind- 
ness, 293 

Lateran council orders badges worn, 8 

Latin schools, their number, 380 

Leghorn, treatment of exiles in, 363 

Leilas forbidden, 162, 229 

Lemos, Count of, profits from confis- 
cations, 373 

Leon, depopulation of, 381 

Lerma, Duke of, his suggestions, 306 
thanks Ribera, 308 
objects to expulsion in 1602, 311 
procures expulsion from Murcia, 

356 
his profits from confiscations, 373 

Letters of safety disregarded, 245 

Levant, emigration to, 189 

Liberty of conscience impossible, 328 

Licences to bear arms, 182,191. 225, 
265 
to go to Africa, 188 

Limpieza, 135, 197 

Lisbon, junta of, in 1581, 296 

Loaysa, Garcia de, his suggestion, 293 



INDEX. 



455 



Loazes on Valencia baptisms, 76 i 

his instructions for Moriscos, 163 I 
Lobon on misery of Spain, 397 I 

Lombay, preparations for rising at, 

332 

Lorca raided by corsairs, 275 

Lords of Moriscos to provide ciiurches, \ 

83 I 

punished for fautorship, 133 j 

Los Velez, Marquis of, in Granada, j 

238 I 

refuses pacification, 244 j 

his disastrous campaign, 249 ' 

Louis Hutin confirms Mudejar fran- | 

chises, 56 
Lucero pers(icutes Talavera, 29 
Luna, Antonio de, at Ronda, 257 
Luque, Francisco de, case of, 390 



MADERA, Greg. Lopez, punishes | 
Horoachos, 182 j 

his punishment, 347 j 

Madrid, Moorish slaves not allowed ! 

in, 388 ' 

auto de fe of 1680, 391 

records of its Inquisition, 392 
Majorca, Moriscos punished in, 99 

Morisco slaves punished, 355 

Moriscos expelled from, 358 
Malaga, harsh treatment of, in 1487, 
17 

tumult in 1635, 389 
Mancofa, number embarked at, 332 
Manices, Moriscos of, reconciled, 60 
Manoel expels Moors from Portugal, 

23 
Manrique, Angel, on number of con- 
vents, 381 
Manrique, Avellaneda, decides claims 

to exemption, 354 
Manrique, Inq^'-Gen-, limits arrests, 
54 

investigates Valencia baptisms, 74 

replies to Aragon, 96 

ordered to provide instruction, 98 
to organize churches, 139 

empowered to absolve for relapse, 
157 

orders Moriscos protected, 185 

frames the Edict of Granada, 215 
Manumission of slaves, 2 
Maqueda, Duke of, sails with his 

vassals, 330 
Mari Gomez, case of, 114, 205 
Maria Paez, case of, 109 
Maria Roayne, case of, 129 



Marie de Medicis admits exiles, 342 
Marriage customs, 129, 214, 229 
fees to be reduced, 142 
control ot Church over, 203 
of Moriscos in Valencia, 205 
mixed, 154, 293 

to escape expulsion, 357 
Marrano, term of opprobrium, 13, 70 
Marseilles, treatment of exiles in, 

362 
Martinez, Ferran, 12 
Marton, Antonio, his revenge, 179 
Martyrs honored by Moriscos, 118 
Martyrdom of Christian Moriscos, 

363 
Mass, Moriscos compelled to attend, 
144, 147, 163 
prescribed for the dead, 163 
Massaci-es of 1391, 12 
Massacre of Jubiles, 243 
Meat, scarcity of, 385 
Median a, Juan de, case of, 130 
Menendez y Pelayo on the expulsion, 

394 
Merchandise, exiles allowed to take. 

345,351 
Mexia, Augustin, sent to Valencia, 
316 
suppresses rebellion, 334 
deports Moriscos of Aragon, 338 
Micon, Juan, preaches in Valencia, 

148 
Midwives, Morisco, to be prosecuted, 
103 
Christian, punished, 133 
for Moriscos, 202, 216 
Military service of Moors, 5 

system of Spain, 238 
Militia, effort to organize, 348 
Mir, v^alvador, a coiner, 379 
Miranda, Francisco de, his self-sac- 
rifice, 318 
suppresses rebellion, 335 
Miranda, Greg, de, advises disarma- 
ment, 193 
Mislata, Moriscos of, prosecuted, 110 
Moderation enjoined on Inquisition, 

95, 103 
Modern views of expulsion, 394 
Mohammad aben Daud. ballad by, 

234, 434 
Monasteries absorb revenues of rec- 
tories, 167 
Mondejar and Tendilla, 219 
Mondejar opposes the Inqn, 218, 219 
his remonstrance. 228 
hastens to Granada, 235 



456 



INDEX, 



Mondejar,hisbrilliant campaign, 241 
works for pacification,. 242 
relieved in disgrace, 246 
recalled to Madrid, 252 
sent back to Granada, 264 

Money of exiles, one- half retained, 
351 

Money question, the, 140, 143, 146, 
167, 176 

JV/o??/ie.s, 191, 224.234 

Montaneses attack Moriscos, 179 

Montesa, Grand Master of, case of, 
134 

Moorish auxiliaries allowed to de- 
part, 260 
customs a proof of heresy, 129 
garments forbidden, 28, 215,217. 

229 
slaves, legislation for, 388 

massacre of, in Malaga, 389 
tithes claimed by the clergy, 17 

Moors, see also Mudejares. 
their toleration, 1 
massacre of, at Ubeda, 4 
value of their industry, 6 
terms granted to, in conquest of 

Granada, 17 
invited to Castile, 23 
forbidden to enter Castile, 44 
forbidden to leave Castile, 45 
estimate of their value, 57 
never to be expelled from Valen- 
cia, 58 
of Valencia support their lords, 62 
unbaptized, restrictions on, 81 
their baptism ordered, 87 
their labor indispensable, 88 
prohibited to leave Aragon, 89 
permissible marriage among, 204 

Moraga, Geronimo, case of. 111 

Moreno, Luis, his reports, 282, 283 
Morerias established, 11 
attempt to abolish then), 151 
to be preserved in Valencia, 152 
Moriscos to be equal to old Christians, 
41, 85 
forbidden to leave Castile, 45 
their instruction, see Instructioii. 
of Castile, outwardly Christians, 55 

prosecuted, 104 
make no appeals to Rome, 84 
of Majorca punished, 99 
temporary relief from Inqu^ 102 
honor victims of Inqu, 118 
of Xea, their turbulence, 135 
driven to church, 144 
are openly Moors, 146 



Moriscos are to dwell with Chris- 
tians, 151 
assessed tor Edict of Grace, 158 
kindliness enjoined for them, 161, 

292 
will not confess to inquisitors, 167 
their persistent obstinacy, 173 
accused of slaying Christians, 181 
reduced to virtual serfdom, 183 
to be protected by Inquisition, 184 
their deplorable condition, 186 
emigration prohibited, 188 
their disarmament, 190 
penalties for maltreating, 194 
effect of limpieza on, 199 
admitted to priesthood, 200 
their relations to the Church, 201 
their marriages, 203 
forbidden to act as butchers, 206 
are the sponge of the wealth of 

Spain, 208 
criminals, their execution, 211 
of Granada, description of, 213 

their negotiations with Charles 
V. and Philip II., 218, 222 

their rebellion, 236 

seek submission, 241 

their deportation, 250, 256, 257, 
259 

their fate, 265, 270, 383 
wandering, enslaved, 269 
hope to reconquer Spain, 272 
their desire to escape to Bdrbar3^ 

275 
held responsible for corsairs, 277 
their plans of rebellion, 279 
suggestions as to them, 293 
their counterfeiting, 314, 377 
expulsion from Valencia, 326 

from Aragon, 339 

from Granada and Andalusia. 
345 

from Castile, 348 

from Murcia, 355 
remnants expelled, 352 
reward for capturing, 354 
expelled from Majorca, 358 
their treatment in France, 361 

in Barbary, 363 
attempt to return, 364 
existing communities of, 365 
their property confiscated, 3^2 
their debts escheated, 374 
completeness of expulsion, 388 
slaves watched by Inquisition, 388 
scanty remnants of, 392 
Morocco, Morisco plots with, 285, 289 



INDEX. 



457 



Moros de la venganza, 179 
Moros depaz of Oran, 393 
Mortality of exiles, 364 
Morticinia, 130 

Mosques, revenues of, claimed by the 
Church, 48 

Dew ones not allowed, 60 

converted into churches, 66, 70,83, 
141, 162 

ordered to be closed, 89 

their revenues collected, 146 
Mud ej ares, see also Moors. 

perform military service, 5 

value of their labor, 6 

ordered to wear badge, 8 

expelled by Abbot of Pob'et, 10 

to be sold as slaves, 11 

conversions m 1391, 13 

land not to be sold to, 14 

persecuted by Inquisition, 27 

their conversion in Castile, 43, 
104 

pay larger tribute than Christians, 
57, 69 

fate of their descendants, 347, 351 

numbers converted, 360 
Muel, description of Moriscos of, 207 
Muela de Cortes, rebellion in, 333, 

335 
Muleteers, Moriscos as, 187 
Murcia, military service of Mude- 
jares, 6 

Moriscos prosecuted, 52 

expulsion suspended, 344 

final expulsion, 355 
Murviedro, counterfeiting in, 378 



NAILS, staining, a sign of heresv. 
130 
Nalias, Francois, a Huguenot plotter, 

281 
Names, Moorish, forbidden, 216, 229 
Nani, Agostino, on expulsion, 296 
Navarrete on influence of limpieza, 
199 
on number of exiles, 359 
on lack of industry, 380 
Navarre, Mudejares emigrate from, 
55 
Moriscos forbidden to enter, 266 
Negativos, 114 

Negro slaves, licences to keep, 229 
New Christians, 13 

not allowed to emigrate. 41 
their instruction ordered, 47 
as witnesses for defence, 113 



Newfoundland, Moriscos to be ship- 
ped there, 301 
Nobles prefer Moorish vassab, 57 
obtain the tithes, 140 
I their exactions, 185 

prosecuted by Inquisition, 205 
opposition to expulsion, 299, 318 
obtain their vassals' property, 321 
their impoverishment, 369, 370, 

371 
absorb the common pasturages, 385 
Number of exiles from Valencia, 337 
from Aragon and Catalonia, 340 
from Andalusia and Granada, 
346 
passing through Burgos, 35 
of remnants expelled, 353 
total estimates, 359 
Nuptials, Mori SCO, 214 



AATHS, dispensations for, 83 

^ Old Christians despoil Moriscos, 

329, 340, 348 
Oliva. baptism of Moors of, 65 
Oliva, Catalina de, 182 
Oliver, Juan, prosecuted for fautor- 

ship, 134 
Opinions, modern, of expulsion, 394 
Oran, treatment of Moriscos in, 330 
suffering of exiles, 363 
its Moros de paz, 393 
Organization proposed in Valencia, 
139 
its details, 142 
I Ortega, Diego de, case of, 270 
: Osuna, lands of, their recuperation, 
I 370 

I Otadui Bp., on Moors, 227 
\ Oxea. but one priest in, 145 
I Oxen, seizure of, 385 



UALENCIA, council of, separates 
^ the races, 11 
Pallas, Luis, case of, 134 
Palmera, Moriscos of, carried off, 276 
Panissault, a French emissary, 287 
Papal power of dispensation, 83, 204 
Parchent raided by corsairs, 274 
Pardon bought by Judaizers, 312 
Passage-money, arrangements for, 

330 
Pasturages absorbed by nobles, 385 
Patronage, royal, reserved, 86 

secured to nobles, 141 
Paul III. supersedes Inquisition, 100 



458 



INDEX. 



Paul III. on confiscation, 121, 123 
empowers Tavera to organize 
churches, 140 
Paul IV. authorizes episcopal recon- 
ciliation, 102 
grants absolution for relapse, 158 
forbids ordination to descendants 
of Jews, 200 
Paul V. orders council held in Valen- 
cia, 176 
Pay of Spanish soldiers, 253 
Pedraza, his account of Moriscos, 213 
Pedro III. permits Moors to remain, 

4 
Penalties for maltreating Moriscos, 
194 
for carrying arms, 193, 195 
for speaking Arabic, 267 
Penance, pecuniary. 119 

worse than confiscation, 124 
limited to 10 ducats, 126 
public, remitted, 156 
Perandreo, Pedro, his capture, 274 
Perez, Gil, a spy of Inquisition, 283 
Perez, Pedro, his murder, 178 
Perez, Bp. of Segorbe, oa the Inqui- 
sition, 110 
argues for confiscation, 127 
urges knowledge of Arabic, 150 
his report, 166 

description of alguaziles, 201 
favors seizing children, 295 
favors expulsion, 303 
Peris, Vicente, orders Moors bap- 
tized, 63 
Persecution, duty of, 8 
Pestilence of 1507, 46 
Peter Martyr, his mission to Egyut, 
36 
on dangers from abroad, 271 
on ravages of corsairs, 276 
Philip II. attempts conciliation in 
1564, 103, 149 
admits independence of Inquisi- 
tion, 123, 124 
confirms compromise on confisea 

tion, 128 
against teaching Arabic, 151 
on mingling the races, 154 
asks extension of brief on relapse, 

160 
renewed effort in 1586, 165 
his system of government, 169, 

244, 248 
orders rectories endowed, 169 
asks omission of denunciation, 1 70 
his preference for burning, 189 



Philip a. orders disarmament in 
Aragon, 195 
admits Moriscos as familiars, 200 
asks for dispensations for Moriscos, 

206 
prohibits use of Arabic, 216 
replies to Moriscos of Granada, 222 
orders expulsion from Granada, 

250, 252, 256, 259 
his measures to suppress the rebel- 
lion. 252 
sends Granadan Moriscos to gal- 
leys, 268 
proposes general massacre, 296 
his irresolution, 301 
tries instruction in 1595, 303 
his death, 304 
Philip III., his accession, 305 

his attempts to convert, 171, 173, 

175 
his anxiety, 289 
prints the Defensio Filei, 298 
thanks Ribera, 308 
favors expulsion in 1602, 311 
sells pardon to Judaizers, 312 
resolves on action, 315 
his letters and edict, 320 
his amusements, 336 
protects jurisdiction of Inquisition, 

355 
celebrates expulsion with a feast, 

358 
orders every Morisco expelled, 364 
attributes poverty to expulsion, 

372 
his prodigality, 373, 385 
seeks to check growth of clergy, 
381 
Philip IV., on losses by expulsion, 
369, 386 
his grant to Ciudad-Real, 384 
Philip v., on the Moors of Oran, 393 
Physicians, skill of Moors as, 6 
Picatoste on the expulsion, 396 
Pius IV. grants absolution for relapse, 
158 
urges Philip II. to persecution, 225 
Pius V. grants absolution for relapse, 
159 
^xes portio congrua, 167 
Pina, Moriscos of, slain, 180 
Pleytas, capture of, 180 
Plots ascribed to Moriscos, 278 seq. 
Plunder, its attraction, 94 
system of, 239 
abandoned to soldiers, 253 
Poblet, Mud ej ares expelled from, 10 



INDEX. 



469 



Polop, massacre of, 63 
Ponce de LeoD, Manuel, opposes ex- 
pulsion, 316 
Population diminishing, 382 
Pork and wine, abstinence from, 104, 

130 
Pork, abhorrence of, 346 
Portio congrua, 167 
Portugal, expulsion of Moors, 23 
Portuguese Judaizers purchase par- 
don, 312 
Portundo, Pedro de, his defeat, 274 
Poverty postpones expulsion, 312 

of Inquisition, 376 
Powder mills at Villa Felice, 280 
Pragmatica of 1566, 229 
Prayers, Moorish, in Arabic, 216 
Preaching ordered in Valencia, 137, 

138, 146, 148 
Preachers are ignorant of Arabic, 149 

to be appointed in 1599, 171 
Preparations for expulsion, 315 
Priest cannot absolve, 167 
Prisoners sworn to secrecy, 11 j 
allowed to be expelled, 324 
of war enslaved, 2, 239 
Priuli, Lorenzo, on dangers from 

abroad, 272 
Prohibited degrees in marriage, 204 
Punishments in Inqn of Toledo, 1 09 
Purchena, capitulations of, 18 



QUARTO, alfaqui of, 90 
Quesada, Diego de, his defeat at 
Tablate, 241 
Quesada, Francisco, his mission to 

Rome, 176 
Qaijada, Luis, his character, 248 

his death, 255 
Quiroga empowered to absolve for 
relapse, 159 
edict of pardon for Aragon, 195 
his letter to inquisitors, 302 



RAMADAN, its observance, 128, 173 
Ramiro I., his death, 217 
Ransom of captives levied on Moris- 
cos, 277 
Rebellion of Granada, its outbreak, 
236 
practically suppressed, 242 
breaks out afresh, 246 
its spread, 249 
surrender agreed, 259 
its cost, 263 



Reconciliation, character of, 49 

secret, authorized, 102 
Recon quest, war of, 1 
Rectories, 141 

insufficient support of, 143, 147 

deficiency of, 164 

their endowment proposed, 166, 
169, 176, 303 

used as preferment, 309 

reform proposed in 1604, 312 
Rectors, their duties, 142 

their salaries, 143, 146, 164, 166, 
167 

their character, 147, 164, 167, 169, 
313 

their poverty, 167 

more to be appointed in 1599,171 
Redemption of counterfeits, 378 
Regulations for Granadan exiles, 265 
Rejoicing of exiles, 331 
Relapse entails burning, 49, 157 

absolution granted for, 157 
Relaxation, see Burning. 
Religious duty of expulsion, 358 

unity in Spain, 401 
Hemedies for the expulsion, 384 
Renegades, 390, 391, 393 

tortured to death at Malaga, 17 

tolerated at Purchena and Gra- 
nada, 18, 21 
Repopulation of Granada, 264 

of Valencia, 369 
Report on Morisco plots, 279 
Requesenes, Luis de, ordered to Gra- 
nada, 247 
Resistance to Inquisition, 135 
Restrictions on the coast lands, 277 
Revenues, reduction of, by expulsion, 

369 
Reward for capturing Moriscos, 262, 

336, 354 
Ribagorza, Count of, remonstrates 

with Charles, 88 
Ribera, Abp., opposes mixed mar- 
riages, 154 

his missionary labors. 163 

on causes of failure, 171 

his memorials to Philip III., 174, 
307 

on condition of Moriscos, 186, 208 

his doubts as to Morisco baptisms, 
203 ^ 

authorized to dispense for mar- 
riages, 206 

on retaining children, 294, 322, 324 

suggests general slavery, 297 

suggests exile or execution, 301 



460 



INDEX, 



Ribera, his benignant methods, 308 
his tardiness, 310 
despairs of conversion, 312 
shrinks from expulsion, 317 
his Sermon, 325 
on returning exiles, 365 

Ribera, Francisca, on Moorish pray- 
ers, 216 

Richelieu on treatment of exiles. 362 
his opinion of the expulsion, 365 

Ricote, Valde, Moriscos of, 52, 357 

Ripol, Juan, his consolatory philos- 
ophy, 367 

Rising of Moors in Aragon, 90 

Rising in Valencia, 91, 95. 333 

Ritual, Moorish, in Arabic, 216 

Roda, Pedro de, 274 

Rodriguez, Miguel, his petition, 196 

Rojas on baptism, 132 

on fautorship of nobles, 183 

Roldan, Hieronimo, his trial, 279 

Ronda, rising in sierra of, 39 
expulsion of Moriscos, 257 

Ros, Baron de, plots with Moriscos, 
281 

Rossano, Bp., urges Philip II. to per- 
secution, 226 



CACRAMENTS to be cheaply ad- 
^ ministered, 142 
Sacristans, their duties, 142 
Saddlers, their retention asked for, 

346 
S. Etienne, Pasqual de, his plots with 

Moriscos, 286 
Salaries of rectors, 143, 146, 164, 166, 

167 
Salazar, Count of, expels Moriscos of 
Castile, 349 

decides claims to exemption, 352 

expels Murcian Moriscos, 356 

his final labors, 358 
Salazar, De Soto, his instructions, 

163 
Salazar, Pedro de, on increase of 

convents, 382 
Sales by Moriscos, 328, 331 

forbidden, 349 
Salignac, Baron de, on Moriscos, 291 

urges reception of exiles, 341 

his remonstrance, 361 
Salviati, Legate, proclaims crusade, 
93 

grants the tithes to nobles, 141 
Sanbenito, 53, 119 
Sanchez, Bartolome, case of, 129 



Sancho el Bravo, his rebellion, 3 
Sandoval, Cardinal, his opinion, 313 
!San German, Marquis of, expels 

Moriscos, 343 
Santiago, knights of, 3 
Saquien, Melleni, king of rebels, 333 
Saragossa, Moors of, protected by 
Ferdinand, 28 

edict of expulsion published, 339 

Inquisition of, its poverty, 376 
Sayago, Moriscos to be moved there, 

295 
Schools to be established, 162, 171, 
295 

in Granada, 216, 232 
Scourging, fees for, paid by sufi'erer, 

119 
Scuttling ships, project of, 296 
Secrecy of inquisitorial procedure, 54, 

111 
Segovia, Haro, bishop of, 100, 101, 

141,145 
Segorbe, Duke of, attacks Moors of 

Espadan, 92 
Seminary for Moriscos, 144 

for women and children, 165 
Sentences in Inq. of Toledo, 109 
Separation of races attempted, 11 
Sequestration accompanies arrest, 54 
Serfdom of the Moriscos, 187 
Serra, Moors of, persecuted, 28 
Seron, disaster of, 255 
Sesa, Duke of, sent to Granada, 248 

his failure, 255 
Seville, auto de fe of 1559, 109 
Shambles, Moorish, closed, 89 
Share of agricultural products, 186, 

370 
Sheltering Moriscos forbidden, 187, 

364 
Sidonia, Bp. of, his prophecy, 164 
Siliceo enforces limpiezaf 198 
Sirnancas, Bp., on baptism, 132 
Sixtus IV. orders oppression of Jews, 
14 

forbids claim to Moorish tithes, 17 
Sixtus V. grants absolution for re- 
lapse, 159 

authorizes dispensations for mar- 
riage, 206 
Slaughtering, Moorish custom of, 1 16 

forbidden. 207 
Slavery proposed for all Moors, 11 

ordered by Clement VII., 98 

proposed for all Moriscos, 297 
Slaves, condition of, 2 
obliged to wear fetters, 44 



INDEX. 



461 



Slaves, Moriscos regarded as, 1 75 
Moorish, forbidden to Moriscos, 

229 
captured in war, 239 
children sold as, 324 
Morisco, prosecuted, 355, 388 
exiles return as, 364 
baptized, their escape to Barbary, 
390 

Soquellanos, Moriscos of, prosecuted, 
110 

Soldan of Egypt interposes for Gra- 
nada, 36 

Spain, growth of intolerance, 10, 13 
its weakness in 1566, 232 
its military system, 238 
its coasts unprotected. 272 
contempt for labor, 380 
its diminished population, 382 
starvation in, 397 

Spoils of war, regulations of, 239 
abandoned to soldiers, 253 

Spoliation of Moriscos, 223, 329, 340 

Staining with henna forbidden, 229 

Starvation in Spain, 397 

Statistics of Valencia Inquisition, 61, 
95, 98,100. 103, 128, 161, 174 
of Inq. of Toledo, 109 

Statute of limpieza, 198 

Stipend, inadequate, of rectors, 143, 
146, 164, 166,167 

Sufferings of exiles, 360 

Suppression of witnesses' names, 112 

Suprema to be consulted prior to ar- 
rests, 53 

Surrender of Granadan rebels, 259 
of Valencian, 334, 335 



TABLATE, Bridge of, 241 

J- Tachas, 113 

Talavera, archbishop of Granada, 25 
his labors of conversion, 26 
persecuted by Lucero, 29 
prints gospel in Arabic, 35 

Talfa, case of, 391 

Taor, the, 131 

Tarragona, council of, 1329, 9 
Moriscos expelled from, 358 

Tavera, Inquisitor-General, organ- 
izes churches, 140 
on offers of Moriscos, 220 

Taxaquet, Bishop, on seizing chil- 
dren, 295 

Tellez, Jacob, his missionary work, 
59 

Tendilla and Mondejar, 219 



j Tendilla as captain-general of Gra- 

i nada, 22 

subdues revolt, 33 

his proposals to Moriscos, 221 

deprived of command, 254 

Term of grace for 26 years, 99 
for Moriscos of Granada, 215, 222 

Teruel, conversion of Moors of, 27 
Moriscos persecuted, 60, 103 

Testimony taken in secret, 112 

Tetuan, martyrdom in, 363 

Thrift of Moriscos a crime, 209 

Tiepolo, Antonio, on condition of 
Spain, 232 

Tithes, Moorish, claimed by clergv, 
17 
tra sferred to feudal lords, 83, 140, 
I 184,186 

I Tlemcen, King of, receives Moriscos, 
I 330 

Tobet, miracle of Our Lady of, 73 

Toga, assembly of, 287 

Toledo, Inqn of, prosecutes Morisc )S, 
104,129 
statistics of InqQ, 109 
Council of, 1582, 165 
statute of limpieza in, 198 
growth of convents in, 382 
auto de fe of 1669. 391 
record of its Inqn, 392 

Toleration of Christians by Moors, 1 
of Moors by Christians. 2 
forbidden by the Church, 8, 328 
urged for the Moriscos, 292, 294 

Tomas de Vilanova asks pardon f >r 
Moriscos, 101 
asks for action against them, 102 
his advice as to rectories, 143 
placed in charge of conversion, 

165 
his report in 1546, 146 
suggests disarmament, 193 
declines see of Granada, 226 

Torquemada, Cardinal, urges expul- 
sion, 15 

Torrent, Micer, on coerced baptism, 

Torrijos, Francisco de, reports Mo- 
risco plot, 235 

brings in rebel chiefs, 241 

brings in arms, 242 
Torrox, affair of, 258 
Tortosa, council of, 1429, 9 

its college a failure, 167 
Torture, use of, 108 

of Mari Gomez, 1 1 7 
! Tudela, Moriscos emigrate from, 55 



462 



INDEX. 



Turixi, Vicente, eiiosen king of 
rebels, 333 

his execution, 336 
Turkish auxiliaries in Granada, 252 

allowed to depart, 260 
Turks, their intrigues with Moriscos, 

279,281 



TTBCAR, PABLILLO. rouses the 
^ Moriscos, 333 

Ubeda, massacre of Moors at, 4 : 

Ueeda, Duke of, grants to him, 373 ! 
Ucles, church of, built by Mudejares, i 

6 
Unbaptized subjected to Inq^^, 132 
Unity, religious, its results, 401 i 

Urgelles orders baptism of Moors, | 

63 i 



VALDES, Inqi-Geni, on Morerias, j 
153 I 

encourages mixed marriages, 154 j 
orders Moriscos instructed, 155 i 
empowered to absolve from re- j 

lapse, 158 I 

applies limpieza to familiars, 199 j 
Valencia, Moors remain in, 4 

Inq'^ persecutes them, 27 i 

nobles and their vassals, 57 | 

exacts pledge from Ferdinand, 58 j 
new mosques prohibited, 60 
statistics of InqJ^, 61, 95, 98, 100, 

103, 128, 160, 161, 174 | 

the Germania, 62 I 

enforced baptism, 63 j 

resulting emigration, 67 
perplexity caused by baptism, 69 
investigation into baptism, 74 ! 

baptisms declared valid, 78 
restrictions on unbaptized Moors, 

81 
Charles orders conversion, 85 
expulsion ordered, 87 
Moors submit to baptism, 91 
rising suppressed, 95 
Inqn suspended, 99, 100 

resumes action, 103 
confiscation in, 120 

agreement reached, 125 
nobles prosecuted for fautorship, 

133 
organization proposed, 139, 142 
Morerias to be preserved, 152 
absolution for relapse, 157 
Arabic forbidden, 1 62 



Valencia, renewed efforts of conver- 
sion, 165, 166, 175 

its college a failure. 167 

council of, in 1599, 171 

edict of grace of 1599, 172 

council of, in 1608, 176 

nobles assert rights over converts, 
183 

Moriscos are predial serfs, 187 

disarmament, 191 

marriage question, 205 

executions of criminals, 21 1 

Moriscos forbidden to enter, 266 

Morisco plots, 280, 282, 286 

its defenceless condition, 286. 315 

Morisco counterfeiters, 314, 377 

amount of censos, 319 

edict of expulsion, 320 

Moriscos submit, 326 

number of exiles, 332 

rebellious movements, 333 

existing Morisco villages, 365 

its repopulation, 369 

bankruptcy caused by expulsion, 
371 

use made of escheats, 373 

losses of Inquisition, 375 

complaints of Brazo Heal, 386 
Valladolid, Moreria of, 153 

records of its Inqn, 392 
Valldigna, baptism of Moors of, 65 
Valor el bayo, affair of, 245 
Vega, expulsion of Moriscos, 256 
Veils, Moorish, forbidden, 229 
Vellon coinage counterfeited, 314, 

377 
Venegas, Pedro , converts mosque 

into church, 24 
Vespers, Sicilian, proposed, 296 
Vienne, council of, forbids Moorish 

usages, 9 
Vinaros, number of departures from, 

332 
Vleyme, Juan, story of, 181 



WARFARE, private, in Aragon, 
181 

Washing, a Morisco custom, 214 
Wealth ascribed to Moriscos, 208, 209 
Weddings, see Marriage. 
Wetnurses, embarrassment about, 

322 
Wine and pork, abstinence from, 104, 

130 
Witnesses, their names concealed ,112 

New Christians as, 113 



INDEX. 



463 



Women forbidden to enter Morerias, 
12 

to be unveiled, 229 

enslavement of, 240, 243, 250, 261 

fight despei-ately, 244 
Wool, exportation of, 380 
Wool-trade, decline of, 385 



VAVARI, Miguel, case of, 174 

-^ Xea, Moriscos of, punished, 103, 

135 
Xenis, Gonzalo el, murders Abenabo, 

261 
Xeque, Muley, King of Morocco, 

289 



Ximenes, his labors in Granada, 29 
burns Moorish books, 32 
provokes revolt, 33 
justifies himself, 34 
orders instruction, 47 



7ACIM, Isabel, case of, 131 
^ Zafar y Ribera, case of, 51 
Zalay the, 131, 214 
Zamhra,i}iQ, 106, 162, 214, 229 
Zegri converted by Ximenes, 31 
Zofras, 184, 186 
Zuazo, Arevalo de, 258 
Zunna, Moors allowed to live under 
it, 19, 20 



ihi^SLEcongress 



0019j0"5723 







m'l^ 



m 




iiii 



